


Long Live the Strike Commander

by Achromos



Series: We're Gonna Be Legends [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Conspiracy, Grief/Mourning, M/M, POV Gabriel, Paranoia, Post-Omnic Crisis, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Vigilantism, When does anyone ever stay dead in Overwatch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2017-03-20
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 58,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Achromos/pseuds/Achromos
Summary: Gabriel's life changes on Christmas Eve, when he fails to pull his best friend from the burning wreck of a car.  He couldn’t remember how he got here, only that it wasn’t fast enough.The Overwatch logo, half of it peeled off from the heat of the fire, the rest covered in white, sticky foam that was supposed to choke the flames. That’s all he could remember, first on the holoscreen, and then burning hot under his fingertips as he tried to pry the metal apart with his bare hands.The Strike Commander is dead. Long live the Strike Commander.





	1. It was something of an end

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [【守望先锋/Overwatch】【R76】 指挥官永垂不朽 07.22更新第二章](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142358) by [batcat229](https://archiveofourown.org/users/batcat229/pseuds/batcat229)



> First of all, I would like to apologize for the Major Character Death tag. M Rating for in-depth discussion of death, loss, grief etc, not for smut. There are spoilery tags NOT in the tags above - I will mention them in the Notes in the beginning of the future chapters that feature them.
> 
> Also, I make no promises.
> 
> Enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EDIT: chapter title from "Something of an End" by My Brightest Diamond

Gabriel remembered a time when things had been different between the two of them – a time before Jack became Strike Commander, even before Overwatch. They used to be the best of friends imaginable, having each other’s backs, knowing the deepest and darkest secrets of each other, having seen the worst and the best of each other, even falling into each other’s beds outside their heats and ruts. There had been no Gabriel without Jack, and no Jack without Gabriel. They had become more than the sum of their parts, a two-headed, two-hearted unit that surpassed definitions and boundaries.

Until Overwatch tore them apart, slowly, incrementally; until the day came that Gabriel looked at Jack from across the room and couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Where the hell the nervous tic in the corner of Jack’s mouth had come from, when the bags under his eyes and the frown lines had appeared, or since when he chewed on his nails whenever he thought no one could see him. Gabriel saw him anyway, but it was like looking at a poem written in a language he’d forgotten.

It didn’t help that Gabriel read Jack’s name at the bottom of official reports like he was someone else, a stranger with the same infuriatingly blocky signature that took up more space than it should; that he saw him more often on the holoscreen than face to face; that Gabriel knew Jack was suffering through his irregular ruts and even heats on his own, which meant that Gabriel, too, was too much of a coward to ask Jack to help him through his rut; that whenever Gabriel did see him face to face, Jack refused to meet his eyes, instead observing the corners like someone was hiding there, waiting to attack.

The signs were all there, and all he had to do was look, but then it was already too late. In hindsight it was all much clearer, unclouded by emotion and petty distractions. Not that it would do any good, now.

Gabriel could still recall that night with clarity – surprisingly so, because it was Christmas Eve, and all of Overwatch, including Gabriel’s ragtag band of Blackwatch misfits, had secluded themselves in a cabin reasonably far away from the hubbub surrounding the Zürich HQ. And as was ancient tradition, Gabriel got shitfaced before Angela could even light all the candles on the actual, organic Christmas tree. Lena had brought some ridiculously strong eggnog, and naturally Gabriel had taken her comment that “it’ll bring back the dead, it’s so strong” as a challenge.

Everyone was huddled around the huge tree in the middle of the living-room space, sat on cushions and swaddled in blankets; a fire crackled merrily in the fireplace, and Reinhardt was roaring German Christmas carols. Everything was in its rightful place. Everything, except- …

“Where th’fuck’s Jack?” Gabriel slurred, flexing his arm until McCree deigned to roll off of it.

“He said he had to finish some paperwork,” Ana replied, appearing next to him in the manner of a Fata Morgana, with a heavenly cup of spicy tea that Gabriel inhaled like it was pure ambrosia.

“Parp- … Paperwork,” Gabriel repeated. “He’s doing fucking p- … paperwork. On Christmas Fucking Eve.”

“He is very dedicated, our Commander!” Reinhardt roared from across the room, and continued to sing, Angela’s gentle Alto soon joining him. “… _O Tannenbaum, wie grün sind deine Blätter_!”

“Torbjorn, how’s the cassette player coming along?”

“I’m workin’ on it!”

“I feel ancient now.”

Next to Gabriel, McCree hollered his butchered version of Japanese well-wishes that Genji was trying to teach him, only to be silenced by a very stern Liao. On Gabriel’s other side sat Gérard and Amélie, blissfully calm and content amidst the whirlwind of Overwatch and Blackwatch operatives. Somewhere in the background, the TV droned, lights flickering on and off because of the tug-of-war between little Fareeha and two of Kimiko’s sons. Apparently they couldn’t decide on which movie to watch.

All the stress from recent missions, the pressure that came with command and the responsibility for his people, it all melted away under the steady stream of eggnog, conversation and music. He was warm, and full, and though he was mostly being ignored, that suited him just fine.

If only there was a solid shoulder to bump into, a flash of gold and blue, a rough rumble of laughter.

“Fucking paperwork,” Gabriel mumbled, and knocked back the rest of his drink.

Suddenly, Athena’s dulcet tones cut through the relaxed Christmas cheer: “Excuse me, Miss Fareeha, Mr. Daiki, Mr. Kobe. Could you please go back to channel number 48?”

Everyone froze, and the children looked at each other in confusion.

“Okay, Miss Athena,” piped Kobe, wrestled the remote controls from his brother, and diligently typed in the channel number.

“… _nahe von Turbenthal. Der Brand konnte grösstenteils gelöscht werden und-_...”

“It seems there was an accident, only minutes from here,” Athena spoke over the news anchor’s voice. “Though that is tragic, I would not have interrupted your festivities for a mere car crash, except I spotted something …”

The images on the holoscreen froze, and then wound back to show an image of the car, flipped onto its roof, flames spouting from the doors like they usually only did in holomovies. Athena then zoomed in on the image, specifically the side of the vehicle, where- …

No. No. No, actually. Gabriel could barely recall the events of that night, it was all a blur. Everything was numb and far away, yet also too sharp; like cotton balls in his ears and the horrible stench of chemicals, the cold kiss of icy wind and McCree muttering intelligibly into his ear as he held him back.

He couldn’t remember how he got here, only that it wasn’t fast enough.

The Overwatch logo, half of it peeled off from the heat of the fire, the rest covered in white, sticky foam that was supposed to choke the flames. That’s all he could remember, first on the holoscreen, and then burning hot under his fingertips as he tried to pry the metal apart with his bare hands.

Jack. Oh God, Jack.

“Jack!” he screamed, tearing at the door on the driver’s side of the van. His hands burned – his throat burned, everything hurt, but he couldn’t stop, Jack was still inside, trapped, _burning, everything was burning_.

He couldn’t remember anything else until the sharp tang of oxygen and Ana’s cool hands applying some sort of gel to his arms and hands as they both sat in the back of an empty, dark ambulance. It felt too crowded, and too silent, the lack of sound ringing in his ears. He let his forehead drop against the window next to him and watched the snowflakes floating from the skies as they melted on the too warm floor. They hadn’t had a white Christmas in years, not this far down. It would be snowing fiercely right then, higher up on the Swiss Alps.

“We’ll find out what happened,” Ana said, continuing to just hold his hands in hers.

What happened was this: The victim had died instantly. It was a tragic accident – a great loss for all of humanity.

That’s what the first medical examiner said.

What happened was this: The car’s hover-tires malfunctioned, perhaps due to frost. The van crashed and first glanced off the rock wall on the other side of the road, before it came to rest on its roof. There had been fireworks in the trunk, stacked high, likely improperly secured. A rupture in the fuel tank, a spark. It took ten minutes for anyone to even notice the burning vehicle.

That’s what the second medical examiner said.

What happened was this: Blunt force trauma to the neck, instant cervical fracture. Postmortem cranial fracture, contusions, lacerations and third degree burns. The subject was declared dead at 1:29am on Christmas Day by the on-site paramedics. No attempts at reanimation were made.

That’s what the third medical examiner said.

What happened was this: Gabriel tore himself out of Reinhardt’s and McCree’s grips to climb into the still smoldering van. They had long since removed the body, and the police wasn’t happy about him crawling all over the scene of an accident. Then he found Jack’s dog tags, sooty but still intact. The chain must have slipped off when- … The tags read: _MORRISON, JACK. 04-16-2021. A POSITIVE. A/O SWITCH. CATHOLIC._ He removed one, and added it to his own. The other he put in his pocket. For safekeeping.

Behind him, the snow slowly took to the ground, dots of white that eventually connected into a blank white sheet. It was very quiet. Too loud, still.

What happened was this: The Strike Commander was dead. Long live the Strike Commander.

*

They wouldn’t let him go to the US. There was a press conference they needed him to attend first, and it was in London, for some convoluted reason, and Gabriel couldn’t bring himself to say a single word. In his lungs there was nothing but the toxic smoke of burning chemicals, and his tongue was cast in molten iron. The flashlights of their cameras flickered like fire in front of eyes that might as well have been closed. Reporters asked him questions that ricocheted off his bubble of silence that still rang in his ears. He was unable to comprehend anything, besides the fact that Jack was dead. He was dead, reduced to ashes, to be buried twice. Once for the people, and once for his family.

Gabriel didn’t know if he was invited to either of those funerals. He didn’t know if he was going to attend them, even if he was – if he could, even if he wanted to. He didn’t know anything, and they kept asking him questions anyway.

Maybe he answered them, mouth running on autopilot. He didn’t know.

Someone named Gabriel Reyes interim Strike Commander, and commended his experience, loyalty and skill. Someone pinned a medal to his uniform. Someone shook his hand. Someone said it was what Jack would have wanted.

How could they know, if Gabriel couldn’t even tell what Jack would have wanted? What the person that died in a car crash for no reason would have wanted? The dead didn’t want, they didn’t wish, and they didn’t have to listen to questions they couldn’t answer. Gabriel looked to the left, caught Ana’s gaze, and imagined Jack’s smile in place of hers. He could recall that particular smile with great detail. It wasn’t the broad, dazzling one Jack directed at strangers he had to play nice with. It wasn’t the pinched, secret one, the one with the bit of tongue sticking out, or the one without teeth that put a dimple in Jack’s right cheek. It was Gabe’s smile – Jackie’s smile. That’s what Jack would do. He would smile, just like this. Gabriel could tell that much, even if he couldn’t tell what Jack would have wanted him to do or say.

They brought him back to Overwatch HQ after, and told him to clear out Jack’s office and his rooms on behalf of his next of kin. Select any personal effects and keepsakes Jack’s family might want to remember him by. Not that there was much left of the Morrison family, after Jack’s mother died a couple of years ago.

One step into the semi-circular room, and Gabriel felt truly present in the moment for the first time since Athena told them that Jack’s car was burning less than two miles away.

The cotton blinds were drawn over half of the windows that made up the entire back of the office, and Gabriel didn’t dare to turn on the lights. It would feel wrong, to light the room without Jack here. The sight onto Lake Zurich was blurred by the silent tears Gabriel was quick to wipe away, and his feet made no noise on the plush, blue carpet.

There were files on Jack’s desk – of course there were. Gabriel set them aside without a second glance, and weighed them down with Jack’s name plate, polished to perfection.

As he gingerly sat down on the chair Jack must have spent thousands of hours sitting in just like he was right then, Gabriel took solace in the searing pain that shot up his arms as he clenched his fists until he could breathe again.

There was a secret compartment to one of the drawers that Gabriel had helped Jack install not even halfway through his first week as Strike Commander of Overwatch. It rattled a little bit as he pulled out a half-full bottle of high quality Tequila and two shot glasses. One of them had a little skull with a pink flower crown on it, and the other one had the words _‘Murica,_ _Fuck Yeah!_ engraved on the bottom in tiny cursive. He ignored the way his hand shook as he filled them to the rim and knocked them back in quick succession. The alcohol burned on its way down Gabriel’s throat, vindictive and merciless.

He poured himself another shot, and finally forced himself to look more closely at the paraphernalia on Jack’s desk. Aside from the files, the name plate and the dark, powerless computer, there was a little US-flag stress ball that looked well-squeezed by fingers with enhanced strength, and three framed photographs.

The first picture was of Charlotte Morrison. Jack’s twin sister. She had the same baby blue eyes and wry mouth as her brother, the same ridiculously golden hair, though in a longer version that framed her sharp chin. God, it had been years since Gabriel had last spoken to her. As far as he knew, she’d married an asshole a few years back, divorced his useless hide after only three months, and was now living in Fuckend Nowhere with her fifteen dogs. A good woman, with a good laugh – Gabriel could see it in the faint wrinkles around her eyes and mouth. There were a few gray hairs, too.

God. Were they really old enough to have wrinkles and gray hair now? He couldn’t recall, did Jack have- …?

He stopped himself and slammed back another two shots before he could remember the way the fine hair at the nape of Jack’s neck felt under his fingers.

The second picture was almost as painful to look at. It was of the six of them – the “founders of Overwatch”, they called them. Reinhardt, Ana, Torbjorn, Liao, Jack and Gabriel. The picture had been taken the night of their first victory, the blood, soot, sweat and grime still covering their faces and previously pristine blue uniforms. There was a silly grin on Jack’s face, his arm thrown around Gabriel’s shoulders, who barely managed a wan smile. Reinhardt was lying flat on the floor, looking into the camera with his head upside down Torbjorn and Ana were sitting on his chest and in the crook of his arm respectively, fingers lifted into the V of victory. Liao, meanwhile, had already fallen asleep, face mashed into Reinhardt’s calf.

Somewhere, Gabriel had his own copy of that photo, even though he could picture even the smallest details with his eyes closed. Like the small cut on Jack’s jaw that had come from some shrapnel nicking his skin. Or the tasteful purple hue of Ana’s nails that Torbjorn had painted on the night before. Or the embarrassing tear in Liao’s trousers that Gabriel certainly wasn’t responsible for in any way.

Most cherished though, was the angle of Jack’s hand on Gabriel’s shoulder – just loose enough not to look purposeful, but precise enough to have grazed the narrow slip of skin between Gabriel’s collar and the edge of his old beanie.

He took another shot of Tequila and shook himself until that exact same patch of skin stopped itching.

The third picture was the worst. Gabriel couldn’t fathom why Jack would have it on his desk – what kind of sentimental value he might derive- … might have derived from it. The other two were clear, somehow. Jack adored his sister, and though they didn’t have much contact anymore, there was always this twin bond. And Jack had always been proud of what the original Overwatch had achieved, so it made sense he would have their group portrait in remembrance of the good old days.

So why, then, was there also photograph showing a very familiar view, that was long since forgotten by Gabriel?

There was just something different about the waters of the Pacific Ocean, and even without the familiar shape of the three and the little rickety bench under its boughs, he would recognize it anywhere. Nearly fifteen years ago now, that was the spot they shared to get to know each other outside the horrors of the Soldier Enhancement Program. Far away from the destruction and hopelessness of the Omnic Crisis. With a cool breeze ruffling Jack’s hair, the sun setting pale and quiet into the vastness of the sea.

He’d forgotten about those cold hours sneaking out of the barracks and sitting there, admiring the view. Apparently it had meant something else to Jack, or he would not have it on his desk, next to his dear sister, and the people with whom he achieved the unachievable.

And Gabriel didn’t know what it was. He would never know, now, because Jack was dead – and with him, the memories of that place had died as well.

He was getting pretty drunk at this point, so he decided to try and get into Jack’s computer to deflect the swelling pain in his chest that the pictures had stirred within him. The password was sure to be something very easy and silly, so he tried _overwatch_. When that didn’t give him access, he tried _charlotte_ , and lo and behold, the screen flickered once before it showed him the things Jack had viewed last. That night, when he stayed behind to finish his goddamn paperwork.

Fucking _inventory_. A classified medical report. A few grainy pictures of a house standing in a field. The mail inbox, overflowing with thousands of messages. Gabriel snorted and deleted them all, in a childish fit of retribution.

He didn’t know what to do next, though. Should he pack the pictures, and some of the other paraphernalia, to send them to Charlotte? Should he keep something for himself?

His gaze wandered to the now nearly empty bottle of Tequila and their crappy, personalized shot glasses. He was totally going to keep those. There was a lot of alcohol in his future, and one could always use some nice shot glasses.

But apart from those, he didn’t see much of sentimental value in here. It was doubtful that Charlotte or Mr. Morrison would appreciate any of the official shit, and to Gabriel it was glaringly obvious that Jack hadn’t really bothered to give the office much of a personal touch anyway. Aside from the secret Tequila drawer. So he let it be, pocketed the glasses and tucked the three photographs into his coat.

Jack’s room was going to be a very different affair.

It used to be that Gabriel could orient himself in those rooms blindly. He’d know exactly where Jack threw his dirty laundry, and which of the chairs was Jack’s, and which one was his. Where Jack kept his forbidden sweets, on which channel of the holo-TV he could watch Lakers’ matches, and how to operate the finnicky espresso machine he’d installed in the little kitchenette. But that had been years ago.

Based on this, he expected something else. On the one hand, he expected it to look the same as last time, down to the stain on the carpet Gabriel had made when he dropped his coffee because the toaster going off scared him; on the other hand, he was sure Jack must have become a total slob without Gabriel’s influence.

Instead, the apartment looked nearly deserted. Anyone could have lived here – no one seemed to live here.

A shudder shook Gabriel as he closed the door behind himself. It _was_ the right room, too, he hadn’t somehow landed in one of the guest chambers: there was the coffee stain. And there was that horrible loveseat Gabriel always got a crick in his neck from whenever he fell asleep watching holovids. But there was a new coffee machine, and no toaster. The bed wasn’t in complete disarray, instead it was made with military perfection, the creases crisp enough to cut through flesh. Everything else that Gabriel associated with Jack’s room was gone, too.

Where was Jack’s stupid snow globe collection? Why were there no socks and shirts strewn all around the place? Since when were the walls bare – standard white, instead of filled with Fareeha’s sketches, ugly-ass abstract paintings and postcards from all over the world? Where had the warm, spicy scent Gabriel found so much comfort in gone to? In its stead he found a bitter, salty smell that clogged his throat, and emptiness. There were no clothes, except for a pair of well-worn sweats, a washed-out hoodie, and Jack’s strike uniform.

Gabriel removed it from its fastenings and ran his thumb over the scratches and dents in the pauldrons covering the shoulders and the biotic chest plate. The bright UN blue of the fiber-enforced duster looked too vivid to belong anywhere in this room. Even though it was nowhere near as bright as Gabriel remembered Jack’s eyes to be. It was a miracle Jack hadn’t worn the duster when- … He was only rarely seen without it, these days. _Had been_. God damn it. Maybe this was a spare? It did look a bit battered.

He decided to fold it carefully and put it with the things for Charlotte and Mr. Morrison to keep if they wanted them – except for the biotic chest plate and the pauldrons, because Gabriel thought they were probably technology the UN didn’t want civilians to have. On the other hand … what harm could it do? Though perhaps the Overwatch logo covering nearly everything would undoubtedly not be much of a comfort to them now.

They had been a very close knit family, back in the days. Gabriel was invited to a Christmas dinner at the Morrison’s once, a year after he dragged Jack to the Reyes’ family gathering. Jack’s mother and father had been very welcoming and warm, offering him hugs, kisses and strong handshakes. He still remembered Mama Morrison’s Christmas turkey.

All of this changed about five years ago, only months after Jack’s promotion, when his mother suddenly fell ill. It looked as though she would pull through thanks to the miracles of modern medicine, but just as unexpectedly, she died.

The night after her funeral was the last time Gabriel had seen Jack cry.

It seemed like that was all he could do now, he supposed, as he packed the things he’d found into a cardboard box. Count all the last times he’d had with Jack.

The last time he’d seen him smile – really, genuinely smile – had been about four or five months ago. They had gone through a rough patch before, and Gabriel had to admit it was mostly his own fault. Though his missions got increasingly more violent so there was no other option but to call them black ops, an off-the-books assassination squad, it was no reason to take it out on Jack. He knew that it might be his signature on the bottom of the kill orders, but Jack was also under pressure from the UN, and Jack, though ready to pull the trigger himself, always despised making others do what he should be able to do himself. The negative tension between them finally came to literal blows as they decided to let off some steam in a sparring match – enhanced soldier against enhanced soldier.

Jack fought like an alpha – merciless, swift, focused; and lost like an omega – smiling enigmatically, as if losing somehow meant winning. That had always been Jack’s unique strength.

That night, Jack followed him to his bedroom without having to be asked, and they continued the fight by fucking like crazy bunnies. In those kinds of fights Gabriel never stood any chance, helpless against Jack’s omega slyness and confidence about his own beauty.

And he was. _Had been_. When he crushed any resistance with his alpha dominance, he was beautiful. When he later coaxed Gabriel into giving him what he wanted by using his omega guiles, he was beautiful. Unafraid to use whatever he needed to in order to reach his goals, even if it meant sacrificing his own comfort, happiness and health.

He looked around the room one last time, noting its dreariness. Maybe Jack had sacrificed too much this time.

*

The day Jack Morrison was not buried, the sun shone over the Arlington National Cemetery. Still, Gabriel was freezing in his old dress uniform, guiltily smoothing down all the medals and ribbons on his breast whenever they jingled quietly. They gave him very little satisfaction, even the Medal of Honor he and Jack received for turning the tides of the Omnic Crisis. Instead, they weighed him down as he walked near the front of the weirdly mixed procession that on the one hand tried to adhere to military traditions, and on the other hand was helplessly overrun by civilians and reporters trying to catch a glimpse of the late Overwatch Strike Commander’s funeral.

Not that there was anything inside the casket.

A few rows in front of Gabriel, he saw Charlotte walking arm in arm with her father. He wondered what they were thinking about all of this. Whether or not they had been given a choice. Whether this meant anything to them at all. The real funeral was still to be held, after all.

Above their heads, both the Overwatch and the US flag fluttered in the wind, and though Gabriel wasn’t a stickler for military tradition, being the first in his family to serve, it somehow bothered him that Overwatch still managed to somehow lay claim to a ceremony that had nothing to do with it. For one, there was the flag. Additionally, the UN had asked Reinhardt to give a speech, which was even more of a breach in protocol. And that wasn’t just Gabriel’s jealousy at not having been chosen to speak at his best friend’s public funeral. Though perhaps he didn’t deserve to call Jack his best friend anymore.

The final straw were the reporters and the civilians, though. They had no place at this ceremony. Jack had given them enough in his life – he shouldn’t need to indulge them in death, too.

Even if it wasn’t Jack’s body in that casket.

Gabriel shivered and glanced at Reinhardt and Angela, the two official representatives of Overwatch, out of the corner of his eye. Thankfully, they weren’t wearing their armor or suit respectively, nor was Reinhardt in his German Army uniform. He still stuck out like a sore thumb, however, due to his sheer size alone.

Angela met Gabriel’s gaze and gave him a soft smile. He scowled, adjusted his beret, and stared ahead, trying to catch glimpses of the pall draped over the coffin, which was being transported by carriage as was tradition. Apparently Jack was getting a very prestigious spot further in. This gave them more time. It gave Gabriel more time to ready himself.

Though they hadn’t chosen Gabriel to be part of the honor guard, he was asked to be the presenter – which meant he would have to stand next to the coffin, up front, where everyone could see his face, and present the folded flag to Jack’s next of kin. Gabriel prayed it would be Charlotte to receive it. She’d always liked him. Their father, however … He’d changed a lot after his wife’s death, or so Jack told him. Blamed everyone for it. Gabriel didn’t dare to imagine what his beloved son’s death would do to the man on top of that.

The front of the procession cleared out as the carriage came to a halt. Gabriel watched Charlotte and Mr. Morrison be ushered away, towards where the casket would be displayed, and then measured his breaths by the carefully choreographed grips and steps of the honor guard. At the appropriate moment, he stepped forward and took his place at the head of the coffin as it was set down, straight-backed, stony-faced and composed. They waited out the three-volley salute, and the lone bugle crooning the “Taps”, sounding far away and mournful. Next, the honor guard folded the flag, and the soldier to Gabriel’s right hand side handed him the flag with a slow salute.

Here it was, then. The moment he’d been dreading.

On jelly legs, he walked the two steps to where Charlotte and Mr. Morrison had been waiting the entire time. It was Mr. Morrison that raised his chin and met Gabriel’s gaze.

“On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Army, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one's honorable and faithful service,” Gabriel said quietly, averting his eyes as he recited the traditional words. Instead, he stared at his own bandaged and gloved hands, which were hesitantly joined by a pair of wrinkled and trembling ones.

“Thank you, my boy,” Mr. Morrison muttered. “I know it’d mean a lot to dear Jackie that it’s you who’s giving me this, though it don’t mean much to myself.”

Startled, Gabriel let go of the flag and stepped back to salute, mind blank.

“Thank you, Gabe,” came Charlotte’s low voice from the right, and he nearly broke protocol to look at her. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t even thank her in return.

The band started playing in the distance, and he somehow made his way back into the ranks of the spectators – he only noticed that there were tears streaming down his face when Angela’s cold fingertips grazed along his cheek.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine, doc,” he growled and wiped the tears away as discreetly as possible with a handkerchief.

“If you say so.”

A flash went off directly in front of his face, and he snarled furiously at the reporter that had dared to take a snapshot of him. The only thing that stayed Gabriel’s hand was the fact that they were attending a goddamn funeral. Judging by the paparazzo’s face, though, he’d made his murderous intent more than clear through his expression alone.

The commotion had caused him to miss the beginning of Reinhardt’s speech, but the next words tore themselves into Gabriel’s mind: “He devoted everything he was to Overwatch. He was our moral compass. Our inspiration. Our friend.”

 _Our friend_.

The echoing ring in his ears droned out the rest of Reinhardt’s words, and just like that he smelled burning chemicals. Pain from his clenched fists radiated all the way up his arms and into his shoulders, and he had to blink a few times to reassure himself that it wasn’t snowing.

Jack was already dead, there was nothing he could do anymore, except salute an empty coffin and hope that his father and sister didn’t hate Gabriel enough to deny him attendance to the actual funeral. And then, life would go on.

He was Strike Commander, now. _Christ_. Was this payback for the dark thoughts in the back of his head that resented the fact that Jack, a handsome White switch, got promoted over a gruff Black alpha? For all the times he wished _he_ were Strike Commander instead of Jack; for all the moments he imagined what it would be like to be respected again, to be looked at with hope and trust? This wasn’t what he wanted. No matter how much he’d secretly craved the promotion, he never imagined it happening over the cold, dead body of his best friend.

Thankfully, Reinhardt’s speech wasn’t that long, and it seemed to have morphed into something of a Q&A anyway, which was less insulting. Until Reinhardt pointed out the fact that Gabriel was the Strike Commander – “ _interim_ only!” – and that they should ask him any Overwatch-related questions.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence, before a young woman dared to ask the first question: “Commander Reyes, sir, it is well-known how close friends you and the late Commander Morrison were – but be honest, aren’t you the least bit happy that you now get to succeed the great hero of the people himself as Strike Commander? That you get to trump him in that regard at least?”

In retrospect, Gabriel didn’t know how in the heavens he’d kept his cool in the face of such an atrocious question. Later, thinking back on it, there was only red hot fury, and the satisfying imagination of the woman’s face smashed in by his fists.

“Becoming Strike Commander is not a happy event,” he said instead, deathly quiet. All the reporters inched forward to better capture his voice with their recording devices. “I lost my best friend to a stupid, tragic accident. And now the lives of all my other friends have been placed in my hands. All I feel is grief and fear. Now, show some respect and kindly vacate the premises. This is a place of worship and mourning, which you are defacing with your insulting questions.”

Of course they didn’t listen and started shouting more questions. But Gabriel had enough of this farce and simply turned his back on them. Behind him, he could hear Reinhardt trying to placate the reporters. For a split second, Gabriel imagined him in his Crusader armor, shield raised. Or better even, swinging his hammer.

It amused him long enough to get back to their transport without crying again.

*

“It healed really well, Gabriel,” Angela said, turning his hands around in her gentle grip. “But that was to be expected, with the enhancements in your system. Still, remember to continue using the moisturizing cream I gave you, especially in this cold, dry weather. And wear gloves as often as you can.”

“Sure thing, doc.”

“And if you notice anything amiss – anything at all – you can always talk to me.”

“So …” He clenched his fingers around empty air to test the stretch of the newly grown skin. It felt a bit tight, but it didn’t hurt anymore. “You’re coming to the funeral today?”

“Yes. All of Overwatch’s command, most prominent agents, and a few of Jack’s trainees were invited.” Angela removed her latex gloves with two quick snaps of her wrist, giving him a curious look under her lashes. “I think it’s going to be nice. We didn’t really get to say goodbye.”

Gabriel hummed and turned away to stare at the Snellen chart hung on the wall next to him.

He’d sent the box with Jack’s personal effects to the Morrisons’ a few days ago, right after the ceremony in Arlington. So far he hadn’t heard back from them. And he hadn’t received a formal invitation to today’s service either, when most of the other Overwatch agents had. He didn’t know what to make of that.

Was he not invited? Should he just turn up anyway, or stay away out of respect? Did Mr. Morrison or Charlotte not want to see the man that had let down their son and brother? It was a cruel thought, but understandable nonetheless. A few years ago Gabriel would have been sure that Jack would have wanted him there, but then they hadn’t really been close in months, if not years. The interspersed moments of camaraderie, sexual attraction and goodwill did nothing to balance out the arguments, Gabriel’s simmering frustration or Jack’s distance. In short, he himself didn’t know whether he deserved to say goodbye and offer his condolences to Jack’s family.

“Gabriel?”

“Hmm?” He jerked out of his thoughts, realizing that he was still sitting on Angela’s examination table, staring mutely at the wall. “Oh. Sorry, doc. I was just thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

He hesitated and watched her drag a stool closer to patiently sit and watch him struggle for words.

“A-about the funeral. And … seeing Jack’s family again.”

“I’m sure it will be a great comfort for them to have you there,” Angela said.

“Do you really think so?” he asked after a few moments, voice strangled. He didn’t know what to make of the pity that appeared on the young doctor’s face after that.

“Oh, Gabriel. Of course. Why would you think they don’t want you to be there?”

Embarrassed, he rubbed his neck, a motion that dislodged his beanie and nearly sent it flying. After a few moments of fumbling, he met Angela’s sad gaze.

“I didn’t get an invitation.”

At this, her face hardened, brows pinching over her pale blue eyes.

“Gabriel. Neither Mr. nor Ms. Morrison know any of us – of course they sent formal invitations. But you’re practically part of the family. It’s just logical that you would attend, like all of Jack’s closest family.”

“But I wasn’t- …” He cut himself off at the sight of Angela’s eyes narrowing.

“Gabriel Reyes, you are going to attend the funeral of your best friend, no matter what. If I do not see you there, I will personally beat you and break my doctor’s oath.”

“Alright, doc, sheesh.” He rolled his eyes and grinned, but secretly he was truly, very grateful for her words. Even if the Morrisons were going to chase him off now, at least he’d have Angela’s support, and that meant a lot.

“Good. Good, alright.” She stood, bustling around for a few moments, before turning back to him again. “And I’m not going to ask whether you own any funeral-appropriate clothing, since you always wear black anyway.”

Gabriel barked out a laugh, and immediately covered his mouth with his now healed hand. Stricken, he felt tears well up in his eyes. This was the first time he’d laughed since- …

“Go on, we should both get ready,” Angela’s voice interrupted his thoughts. “Our transport is leaving in a few hours.”

“Yeah. Yes, you’re right. Thanks, doc.” He hesitated at the door. “For everything.”

“You’re welcome, Gabriel.”

*

Gabriel had been raised Catholic. His parents weren’t overly pious, but they liked their Sunday church, to say grace before a meal, and sometimes when papá got under mamá’s skin, she said the rosary. Next to his dog tags, Gabriel wore the cross his tía had gifted him for First Communion, and after surviving a day he might have died a dozen times he liked to give a little prayer before bed.

Jack used to join him sometimes, though he was raised on less religious traditions – he seemed to find some comfort in the humble Spanish falling from Gabriel’s lips as he thanked the Lord for granting him another day on His earth.

There was something wrong with praying in English, however; something that jumbled both Gabriel’s brain and his tongue, which completely defeated the purpose. Perhaps it was just that he wasn’t used to it. English wasn’t his language of worship, nor did it seem to be his language of mourning.

So he pressed his lips together, stared at the simple bronze urn displayed on a small pedestal in front of them, and waited for the right moment to mumble “Amen”.

None of it felt right. Not the urn waiting to be buried, not the priest’s quiet recital, not the Overwatch agents standing somberly to both of his sides, not the stony expressions on Charlotte’s and Mr. Morrison’s faces.

The ceremony itself was over quickly, as there was no wake, and the Morrisons refused to hold a funeral Mass. A few of the younger agents that had been mentored by Jack were the first to offer their condolences to their dead commander’s family. Gabriel separated himself from the stream of people queueing after them to say a few words, and instead went to stand in front of the urn.

It looked very plain. Much too plain, for someone as bright and larger than life as Jack Morrison. Yet at the same time, it fit him perfectly.

“Que en paz descanse,” he said, finally feeling peace finding him as well. He gently touched a gloved fingertip to the brushed bronze surface of the urn and closed his eyes.

“Thank you for coming.”

Gabriel pulled back his hand as if caught doing something forbidden. When he turned around, Charlotte met his eyes calmly, composed in her silent grief. Every line and angle in her face was a nearly perfect mirror of Jack’s face in Gabriel’s memory, except for the fact that she looked at him like one would look at a telephone book. Behind her, Mr. Morrison loomed uncertainly, and for a moment Gabriel could see Jack in his hunched spine as he tried to hide himself behind his daughter – his only remaining child.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Gabriel blurted stupidly, and immediately felt his cheeks heat up in embarrassment, but Charlotte only smiled thinly.

“We know it would mean much to my brother that you’re here today. He was very … You meant much to him.”

Uncertain how to respond to his, Gabriel rummaged in his coat pockets until he found the second chain and dog tag. His gloved fingers were clumsy as he held them out to Charlotte, but it eventually crumpled in her palm as was his intention.

“I know I already sent you his stuff, but the- … I thought you should have this. That I should be giving you this myself.” He cleared his throat. “I hope you don’t mind that I kept the second tag.”

“Of course,” was all she said before pocketing the chain. “Goodbye, Gabe. And good luck for your future endeavors.”

She walked away before he could croak out a reply, shoulders square and back straight like she’d inherited her brother’s military bearing. This left him alone with Mr. Morrison, who eyed Gabriel the way one would a stranger sharing one’s bus stop at 3am.

“Mr. Morrison,” he forced out, but the old man finally relaxed and waved a frail hand.

“Call me John, son. There’s no need for formality here, standing at my son’s grave.”

“Alright, John. Sir.”

That caused his thin lips to curl up into a small, fleeting smile.

“You’re a good man, you know. My Jackie was always full of high praise for you. Makes me think you hung the moon or something.”

“I most certainly did not, sir.”

He chuckled, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth in a gesture Gabriel had seen Jack do at least a million times.

“I know you got a good family, son, and good people looking after you,” he said then, reaching out to touch the same hand to Gabriel’s elbow. “But if you ever need anything- …”

There was no reason for him to cry at this kind offer, but he could feel his resolve break, and the old man’s gentle, unsure pats to Gabriel’s bicep only made his throat clog up even more.

“Here now, there’s no need for none of that.” And then, when Gabriel’s sobs only got louder, and his embarrassment had to match John Morrison’s discomfort, he said: “Farm’s not too long a ride from here if you want a cup of tea?”

“No, no. I’d hate to impose.” He quickly wiped his cheeks and nose with a tissue, both in an effort to not look all gross and snotty, as well as to hide his face from the old man’s shrewd gaze. “I’m, uh … We’re all needed back on base.”

“There’s always people to save, I suppose.”

Gabriel turned away, unable to bear seeing any more of Jack’s mannerisms in his father. But doing so only got him to face the urn instead.

“I guess this really is goodbye, then,” he whispered.

“You’re always welcome to visit, you know. I’m sure Jackie won’t mind the company.”

“Sure,” he said, thinking that he couldn’t imagine himself bringing up the courage to come back and place flowers of all things at Jack Morrison’s grave.

Because that’s not where Jack was. Whether he was in Heaven or Hell, someplace else or nowhere at all, a victim of decay and darkness, he was gone. Just like Gabriel had forsaken him, leaving him to die alone in a cold winter’s night, Jack had left him in return.

Gabriel dreaded returning to any of the Watchpoints, where Jack had made his mark. He was in the dents of mess hall tables he’d stumbled into; he was in the frayed safety belts of their hover crafts; he was in the burn marks at the back of shooting ranges from the times he’d missed his Helix rocket shots; he was in the empty space of Gabriel’s bed, and the shitty coffee he loved so goddamn much. There was no escaping the evidence of Jack’s living presence – which only emphasized the yawning, painful vacuum he now left behind in death. And Gabriel already hated it with every fiber of his being.

No. Gabriel didn’t see himself coming back to a stone with Jack Morrison’s name on it.

*

Sometimes, when he commanded soldiers on the field and killed in the name of a better world while he was forced to watch men and women fall around him like broken puppets, he forgot that new life was part of the cycle as well. But in his arms was the unmistakable proof. No matter how many died, how many he lost, somewhere a new life would come into being.

“He truly is an angel,” Gabriel whispered, referencing his newborn nephew’s name, Ángel. He met his sister’s eyes for a second before being drawn in again by the beauty of the baby in his arms.

“We initially thought about naming him Jack- …”

He tore his eyes from Ángel’s little sleeping face long enough to glare at Isabel.

“… but I knew you’d give me that face,” she chuckled.

“Also, just imagine the teasing he would have had to endure for that White boy name,” Ernesto, Isabel’s husband, butted in.

“Shut up, _tonto_ ,” Gabriel growled, in honor of their long standing tradition of friendly brother-in-law banter – or he would have growled, had his voice not broken in the middle of the sentence. This earned him concerned glances, which he shut out by burying his face in his nephew’s downy curls instead. God, babies always smelled amazing. So clean, and soothing.

As if picking up on his distress, Ángel hiccoughed and opened his eyes with a few confused blinks. He quickly latched onto Gabriel, fingers unerringly finding his beard to tug at, and let out a tiny growl.

“Oh, are you challenging me? Is that right? Are you a little alpha, like your amazing uncle?” Gabriel cooed, and echoed the growl with one of his own. The baby giggled at the vibrations and gurgled in delight.

“He’s either alpha, or an alpha-beta switch, like me,” said Ernesto.

Gabriel only listened to his brother-in-law’s chatter with half an ear, as he went on to argue that Ángel would most likely be a switch, because most boys in Ernesto’s family were switches. Instead, Gabriel focused only on the baby in his arms, and their playful challenging game. Ángel would growl, properly with eye contact and a beard-tug, and Gabriel would answer it with a low roar of his own.

That Ernesto could go on talking while they did that proved that though he was an alpha-beta switch, his primary dynamic was beta. And it also proved that even if Ángel turned out to be a switch, his primary dynamic was most likely alpha, or he would lack the singular focus alphas could utilize and also fall prey to. In nature, it sometimes appeared in the form of blood frenzy, and a biologically induced state of such focus was called a rut. It could lead to great conflict, but also deep, unbreakable connections. What Gabriel was doing with Ángel was technically Ernesto’s job as the baby’s father. But within their family unit, Gabriel was unquestionably the more dominant alpha. Whether Ernesto was aware that he was showing his submission by ignoring their growling and posturing he could not tell, but Isabel was certainly tuned into what was going on, as a beta-omega switch.

Normally, the dynamics didn’t matter so much, but they were still important within family units, and sometimes other close-knit communities, or between friends, as they were an integral part of deeper social bonding.

With Jack, a rare alpha-omega switch, he’d had both the unbreakable, singular focus bond between alphas, as well as the fluctuating give and take between an alpha and an omega. The latter connection was harder for Gabriel to grasp, since it belonged more firmly in the omega’s domain. Their role within family units was to smooth out lines of friction, to gauge moods, to coax and dampen. As alphas could stoke each other into a mindless frenzy, an omega was capable of directing both their own and an alpha’s drives into something more dependable and productive. And though many were under the delusion that alphas were somehow stronger, Gabriel liked to compare alphas to sledgehammers, and omegas to sirens. While the hammer might tear down walls or break bones, it was also singularly stupid. On the other hand, a single siren could lay waste to an entire army if it so willed. And usually, omegas only used their talent for control and persuasion when their family or their nest was being threatened, which led to the misconception that omegas were somehow passive. But woe betide those who would dare challenge an omega in their territory.

Gabriel had once witnessed Jack decimate an entire platoon of hyped-up alphas by staring at them, because they had interrupted his morning yoga. Never before had there been a sight more beautiful or frightening.

Jack once said that alphas were self-important pricks only capable of giving their full attention – and nothing less – to one person at a time, usually themselves. To be on the receiving end, however, made one feel incredibly special. And as an alpha-omega switch, coupling the focus with the ability to read and shift group dynamics, Jack was capable of making everyone in the same room as him feel that way, something that had made him an amazing second-in-command during the Omnic Crisis. While Gabriel had to ride everyone’s asses to enforce discipline and results, he could delegate the things that needed people-skills to Jack. Afterwards, when the UN made Overwatch public and decided that they wanted Jack instead of Gabriel to be Strike Commander, Gabriel had always assumed that this decision could ultimately traced back to Jack’s unique alpha-omega switch abilities, which was frustrating, and frustratingly logical.

So now it was Gabriel’s responsibility to lead Overwatch again, but this time without Jack’s help. With the vacuum left behind by Jack’s absence, and this great ideal, now martyrized in the minds of both the public and the agents, that he had to strive for, meet, and possibly even surpass if he wanted to be successful at all. It was a lot of pressure. He realized that he needed these two short days visiting his sister, brother-in-law, and their infant boy, if just to get a little bit of reprieve. A few moments of comfort before the storm.

Ángel cut his little growl short with a tiny yawn, and Gabriel laughed quietly, reeling a bit from the sudden disconnect of their shared focus bond. Isabel and Ernesto had moved away, giving them space – he could hear them bicker lightheartedly in the kitchen.

Gabriel’s presence on top of little Ángel’s celebrated arrival was cause for celebration in the Reyes-Aguilar household, which meant that Isabel and Ernesto had invited not only both of their parents and Ernesto’s brother Esteban alongside his wife Gloria, but also Gabriel and Isabel’s baby sister Paquita, who now finally wasn’t the baby of the family anymore. This meant that there was a feast to be prepared from scratch, as Gabriel had simply dropped by, wanting to say hello to his nephew, sleep over and leave quietly the next morning. He should have known that would be impossible.

Paquita was actually the first to arrive in a flurry of curls and bright, ripped tights. She kissed her nephew’s soft cheeks in greeting, and then threw herself into Gabriel’s arms.

“Up! Up!” she cried, and he obliged, holding her up over his head and spinning her around like he used to when she was little.

He feigned a hurt back, and moaned: “You got fat, Paquita! Don’t make me do that again.”

“Isn’t that what you got these for?” she giggled, trying to wrap both of her hands around one of his upper arms. With a roaring laugh he flexed his bicep, nearly lifting her off the ground again. Paquita squealed in delight, until Isabel shushed her with the exasperated air of a much older sibling.

“If you two have so much leftover energy, why don’t you help out in the kitchen, huh?”

They got delegated to washing, peeling and cutting vegetables, which ended up in a short water fight, and Gabriel showing off his knife-skills. After a particularly daring twirl, he caught the rather serious expression on his baby sister’s face, and stopped.

“Hey, _hermananita_ , what’s the matter?”

She gave him a small smile and went back to peeling their last potatoes.

“Just nice to have you here, you know. And nice to actually see you smile and laugh, too. You always look so serious in the holovids.”

“Didn’t know I was in them so much,” he teased, suddenly aware of the strain in his cheek muscles.

“Well, you’re not. Not really. We always spot you somewhere in the background though, and I guess it’s only logical you weren’t smiling last time they showed- …” Paquita suddenly cut herself off, leaving the sound of the potato peels hitting the bowl the only remaining noise.

“Hmm?” he said absentmindedly as he washed his hands. Then it struck him. The last time he was on TV was at Jack’s Arlington funeral.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to remind you- …”

“It’s okay, Paquitita,” he sighed.

It wasn’t really, but he didn’t want to burden his young, bright sister with his grief. Because that was what it was, and it only really started to hit him – the unreality of the days and weeks after seeing Jack’s car burn with his body still inside had slowly begun to dissipate, allowing the real hurt into his heart. He tried not to let it show on his face as he turned around to smile at Paquita, but he could see that he’d failed to hide it all when she hesitated to pick up her task again.

When he heard the doorbell and the warm, happy voices of his parents drifting into the kitchen, he sent Paquita ahead. He needed a few moments to compose himself again, feeling his breath stuttering in his lungs and the sting of tears in his eyes.

But once he buried his face in his mamá’s soft, white curls the aching and longing were all packed away and hidden – nowhere near the surface, where they would only hurt the family and loved ones that were left to him. The last vestiges of tension washed away once he let his father’s soothing purr rattle him to the bone, and he allowed himself to forget, even if just for a few hours, that there was a hollow space inside his heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would be so grateful for any comments! I could talk about this fic and Overwatch all day, and if you want to talk to me you can do that on tumblr over at llaevateinn.tumblr.com, also if you spot a mistake (I'm neither Hispanic nor Catholic, so if anyone knows it better than I do, you're welcome to say so!)
> 
> Headcanons 'n stuff:  
> 1\. Charlotte Morrison is Jack's identical twin. Do the Math.  
> 2\. Yes, their dad's name totally is John. I don't know where the hell the John "Jack" Morrison thing came from in fanon, it's never been confirmed, but I'm not doing that.  
> 3\. Yes, I'm putting my own spin on the A/B/O thing, I hope it didn't deter anyone from reading. I just wanted to complicate matters for myself yeeee ...  
> 4.['Murica, Fuck Yeah!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOJCmPKaYN8)  
> 5\. Happy f*cking Holidays, you guys, have a [nice song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lS4wTuvR7Ik) *gross sobbing*


	2. Treasured moments become lost treasures

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT PEOPLE YOU ARE AMAZING, THIS FANDOM IS SO NICE CAN I PLZ STAY HERE 4EVER? No, but seriously, your reactions were overwhelming, I hope this update lives up to expecations, I'm super insecure about this tbh :')
> 
> This chapter is going to go deeper into some of those other tags, like the unhealthy coping mechanisms, a little conspiracy and paranoia. I seem to be unable to write anything that isn't horribly convoluted.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> EDIT: now with chapter titles! This one's from "All The Things Lost" by MS MR. Yes, I use song lyrics. Sue me.

_Soft morning light streamed in through the open window, and a warm breeze ruffled Gabriel’s hair. He laughed and stepped onto the balcony to admire the view. There were corn fields wherever he looked, and their gold color reflected the sunlight until the whole horizon dazzled like the ocean._

_Behind him, a bark alerted him to Calypso’s presence. The Labrador happily sat down next to him, wagging her tail._

_“Hey, buddy, haven’t seen you in ages. How are you doing?”_

_She woofed and licked his palm, like she used to when he was a child. Then she turned and gave Paquita the same treatment – something she’d never done before, because Paquita hadn’t been born when they had Calypso. Paquita laughed too, patting the dog’s head._

_“That’s a nice view you’ve got here, Gabe.”_

_“Isn’t it?” he said proudly, turning to watch Jack rub Calypso’s ears between his fingers as she licked his face. “I know it’s your favorite, too.”_

_“So it is.”_

_Jack joined Gabriel on the porch, and they sat on the stairs to the garden. They quietly sipped their drinks, basking in the few moments of peace and quiet._

_“It’s a miracle this hasn’t been destroyed by the Omnics yet. I can’t believe there are still places like this anywhere in the world.”_

_“Oh, I don’t know,” Jack murmured, bumping his shoulder into Gabriel’s. “It’s always nice where you are.”_

_“You sap!”_

_Gabriel laughed and put an arm around Jack’s shoulders, which quickly resulted in them wrestling on the porch. He finally won, getting a good headlock on Jack he couldn’t get out of – he went slack in Gabriel’s grip, and he gave a boastful roar, expecting Jack to immediately rise to the challenge again. But he just lay there, head now resting in Gabriel’s lap._

_“Jack?”_

_He knew something was wrong once he felt warmth seeping through his pants. Frantically, he tried to turn Jack around, to see if he was okay, but he was so heavy – he couldn’t lift him, the weight was crushing him, and it was burning hot all of a sudden. It blistered his skin where he was in contact with the ground, and he felt himself being crushed in between, breathless and scorched._

_“Gabe, why aren’t you listening to me?”_

_He looked up into Jack’s face, ruined by fire and blood, and- …_

Gabriel woke up with a strangled shout.

Already, the dream was starting to slip from his mind, but the terror, the burning heat and the weight preventing him from drawing breath stayed with him. That, and the pained, betrayed look in Jack’s dead eyes.

This wasn’t his first nightmare by far, and some situations tended to produce more of them. But since his return from the US, now a month since Jack’s funeral, the nightmares had returned with full force, and a single reoccurring element: Jack.

Sighing, he groped around on his bedside table for his alarm clock. Its happy green digits read 3:17am. But the dull nausea in Gabriel’s stomach told him he wouldn’t get any more sleep tonight. Just like last night, and the night before that.

He didn’t know what to think – or do – about it. There was the tempting possibility of sleeping pills, but he knew how dangerous those could be, especially in their line of work. And talking to Angela seemed like too daunting a task, to be honest. She would see right through him, and recommend therapy or something equally sensible. But there was this tiny, hidden part inside him that welcomed the nightmares. Even though they always ended horribly, they were also the only way to be with Jack again, to feel their bond and camaraderie. As sappy as that sounded, he wouldn’t miss it for anything.

Resigned, he started to prepare himself for the day. This involved a very quick, cold shower, brushing and flossing his teeth, a beard trim, and lots of skin care. The Strike Commander always had to look his best, aside from also having to be the best – immaculate inside and out. Along with the new, old title came his new, old uniform, now blue again instead of Blackwatch-gray, red and black.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, blue beret on his head, bright blue pauldrons over a black chest plate, the Overwatch insignia over his heart. The look in his eyes made even him want to salute.

At just shy of 4am, the Zürich HQ was more or less deserted. A few of the agents that had returned from a peace mission in Pakistan were in the mess hall, still getting used to the time zone. They stood and greeted him promptly when he passed them on the way to the coffee machine.

“At ease,” he muttered, already feeling the first headache of the day coming on. He decided to enhance his coffee with a generous shot of rum from the flask at his hip, and was pondering whether or not to loom awkwardly in the cafeteria or get drunk all alone in his new office, when a voice interrupted his train of thought.

“Howdy there, boss! What’cha doin’ up so early?”

Of course. He’d totally forgotten about the fact that Jesse McCree was sent along for the Pakistan peace mission. Steeling his face, Gabriel turned around to focus his attention on the young man. Grinning insolently, the beta-omega switch wasn’t deterred by Gabriel’s posturing, and ignored his disapproving glare at the – thankfully unlit – cigar hanging from his bottom lip.

“Trying to enjoy my damn coffee in peace,” he finally growled, hackles rising when McCree only laughed and held up his hand holding a huge cup of coffee.

“Well, ain’t that the coincidence, that’s what I was doin’ as well! C’mon, I know a good spot to be in peace.”

There was no choice but to follow the younger man as he strutted past the group of agents watching them like hawks – but as McCree dealt with them by ignoring their stares, Gabriel met each of their eyes with a nearly sub-sonic growl. That would put them back in their places.

McCree led him past the medical and science wings of the building, past the chemical smells and low hum of experimental machinery, to a small alcove overlooking the Zürich skyline, the glint of the rivers Limmat and Sihl visible between the towering buildings, Lake Zürich in the background. Gabriel took a deep breath, his senses picking up on the spicy scent of cigar ashes in the air.

“You come here often?”

“Every once in a while.”

Gabriel didn’t say anything as McCree lit his cigar, and watched the smoke curl forth until it dissipated in the air. The smell was pretty strong, much harsher than the remnants left from the last time McCree was here, but Gabriel found that it went surprisingly well with the taste of rum and coffee, mingling with the spice and bitterness.

“I quit smoking years ago,” he said after a while, surprised at himself for speaking. When McCree only looked at him through the cloud of smoke hanging between them, he continued hesitantly: “It was during the SEP. Me and Jack used to sneak out; him for wanting some fresh air, and me for wanting a smoke. Which, you know, obviously doesn’t go that well together.”

McCree hummed into his own cup of coffee, and eyed the glowing butt of his cigar.

“You want a drag now?” he asked then.

Gabriel stared at the offering for a few seconds before shaking his head and indicating the mug in his hands.

“Got my own poison right here.”

“Caffeine?”

“Alcohol.”

McCree spluttered and gave a startled laugh.

“You, boss? Getting’ drunk before lunch?” Then he slapped his thigh. “Damn. Should’a said ‘It’s always high noon somewhere in the world’.”

“You and your damn Western references,” Gabriel groaned, not missing the smug smirk on McCree’s face.

They fell into a comfortable silence then, as they watched the first hints of sunlight creep up behind the horizon. It was going to be a dreary day, though, if the clouds were any indication. Not that it would make much of a difference, since Gabriel was sure to be stuck inside all day, either in his office or in the meeting room, holding a conference call with the higher-ups. If he got really lucky he’d also get to see the inside of the shooting range or weight room.

As if on cue, the communicator on his belt started beeping wildly. He’d have to change the tone to something else soon, or his blood pressure might go through the roof.

“Duty calls,” he sighed, reading the message from his secretary – _his secretary_ – that indicated he had received some important documents that needed his immediate attention.

“Well, I guess I’ll be seein’ ya around, boss. And feel free to use this space here if ya ever need a minute all alone.”

“Thanks, kid,” Gabriel said and reached out to ruffle McCree’s already messy mop of hair. The young cowboy-wannabe gave him a lazy salute in return, and went back to smoking his cigar.

McCree was one of the few good things to come out of Blackwatch. Their mission to bring down the feared Deadlock gang’s business had been one of the first large, near-public stints, and a real test for the men and women under Gabriel’s command. Most of them had been chosen for their specializations, their dodgy history with the wrong side of the law, or because they charged a reasonable price for their services. Before, they had mostly worked in small units, pairs of two or three, depending on the mission: information extraction, sabotage, kidnapping, assassination, and the like. One didn’t need a team of thirty men and women to do that. But the Deadlock gang was a formidable adversary – fearsome enough, even, to warrant the help from a few of the more prominent Overwatch agents. One of them was Ana, whose sniping, reconnaissance and tactical skills ultimately proved to be invaluable.

Gabriel breezed through the long corridors leading from McCree’s secret little alcove to the administrative wing of the Zürich HQ. Around him, the base was slowly rousing itself from the doze of the night shift, busy daytime bee workers bustling past Gabriel on the way to their stations. When he finally reached his shiny new office, his secretary was already at her desk next to the door, giving him a wary once-over.

Veronika Suter was an older Swiss woman with an excellent background in military administration. She also quite obviously didn’t like Gabriel too much. As he greeted her with exaggerated politeness, he wondered why they had fired Jack’s old assistant. The man had been about their age, and an absolute sweetheart. What had become of him?

“Good morning, Commander,” Veronika said crisply. “The applications for the position of Blackwatch Commander are on your desk, as well as the Pakistan mission report. At 0900 the scheduled conference call with UN Secretaries Todorova and Mbembe will take place in the meeting room, and may I remind you of your lunch plans with Frau Doktor Ziegler and Mr. Lindholm, regarding this year’s research budget? In the afternoon, you should also expect a short visit from Ms. Schillig, she will take another look at the security configuration of your computer terminal. Until then, please refrain from accessing any top-security level documents.”

“Is that all?” Gabriel couldn’t help but to ask drily, which earned him a cool look from Veronika.

“Yes, Commander. That would be all.”

“Very well,” he sighed, and sloshed the last remains of his now cold coffee around in his mug. Today was going to be a very long day, but he didn’t dare to ask his PA to bring him more coffee. He suspected she would rather throw it in his face than serve it with a splash of rum.

*

“… not even listening, as usual.”

He blinked, torn out of his reverie, and suddenly realized that he must have been staring at the pizza on his plate for a while. Torbjorn gave him a quizzical look, before continuing to shovel pasta Bolognese past his beard with an exaggerated eye roll.

They were sitting in a cramped little Italian place on the outskirts of Zürich; reputable enough not to give them food poisoning, but anonymous and small enough with owners that couldn’t care less about them being some kind of important people. The perfect place to discuss ‘the budget’. Which was just another code word invented to obscure the fact that even Overwatch agents liked to bond over lunch sometimes.

“A shame Winston couldn’t join us – again,” Angela said quietly, a neat blob of mushroom risotto balanced perfectly on her fork.

“Thinks people will stare and judge, he does,” Torbjorn grumbled.

“Can’t blame him, after the last time.”

The three of them paused, shuddered, and quickly busied themselves with eating. No one spoke of the Bar Incident. Ever.

“So, how is being Strike Commander treating you, Gabriel?”

“Just fine, doc. Still have to choose a new Blackwatch Commander.” He fell silent, waiting for the server to breeze past them with drinks for another table. Couldn’t hurt to be careful with Overwatch’s biggest, darkest secret. “But I read that Pakistan was a success. So we’re off to a good start under the new management. And how are the labs doing? Unofficially?”

Gabriel let himself lean back, and let Torbjorn’s complaints wash over him. This intern was being lazy, and this cleaner always left things where they didn’t were before, and that researcher had a screw loose. The usual. Angela’s gentle reminders not to be harsh were met by even louder complaints, and they were back on most familiar territory.

While Torbjorn railed against the number of banana peels and smudges of peanut butter on his equipment, Gabriel toyed with the last slice of pizza prosciutto on his plate. He could never get over how little topping there was on European pizza, and how thin the crust was. Crazy Italians.

Jack used to love genuinely Italian pizza.

There had been a happier time, a phase of the length of maybe two or three months when everything between them had seemed like it was good and whole again. An opportunity to go to Rome popped up, to meet the Pope of all people, and Jack had asked Gabriel to accompany him. Not to talk to the Pope, because Gabriel wasn’t important enough anymore for that kind of stuff. He still remembered how little that phased him at the time, content with spending some time in Rome alone with Jack. In fact, it was Jack who thought it was unfair, since Gabriel was the more religious one of the two of them.

“I don’t even know how to talk to the Pope. My God, Gabe, what if I say something stupid?”

“Just smile, and he’ll think an angel has been sent from the Heavens.”

Jack groaned and punched his shoulder. It didn’t even hurt.

Of course everything went smoothly, and afterwards they went out to have the most cliché dinner. They chose the most expensive restaurant on Piazza Navona, thinking that the UN could afford to feed two healthy, hungry super soldiers. They ate antipasti, roast meat, pizzas and all kinds of delicious desserts under the moonlight, rich red wine rolling over their tongues.

That night, Gabriel tasted the wine and the sweetness of the vanilla flavored panna cotta Jack ate in his mouth as they made love in Jack’s luxurious hotel suite.

Gabriel aggressively rubbed his face to hide whatever expression he was wearing right then. God, how had they really been so happy once? Why would anything that perfect and carefree ever turn so bitter and painful? Why did it have to end like this, before they could get their shit together? Before they could- …

“Come on, guys, we should probably get back,” he said, well aware that they hadn’t been gone that long. But he couldn’t bear to sit with his friends and listen to their comfortable banter a second longer. Not when he couldn’t make himself join their conversation and pretend like everything was okay. Because it wasn’t. Nothing was okay, and nothing could ever make it okay again.

He thought about that on their way back to the Zürich HQ. He thought about it while staring at the applications for Blackwatch Commander. He thought about it when a woman came to tinker with his computer and security system, and he thought about it that night when he went to bed, tired, cold, and miserable.

This was his life now.

*

Once upon a time, Overwatch had only six members, yet it helped to bring about the end of the Omnic Crisis. Today, it was a bureaucracy-heavy monster that employed thousands of people all over the world, with Watchpoints stationed on every continent, including Antarctica. It was a massive machinery that Gabriel had to formally reacquaint himself with. He wasn’t used to commanding PR campaigns and discussing financial strategies alongside assembling protection squads and escort missions.

Gabriel was a man that commanded other men and women with his physical presence. Despite his deep voice, he wasn’t that good at shouting, and his gruff personality prevented him from developing the kind of fame and positive reputation that Jack utilized to lead Overwatch. If anything, Gabriel was known for being a mean hard-ass, but that didn’t exactly inspire loyalty.

What Gabriel needed, was a good second-in-command. Someone brave, loyal, heroic enough to be in the limelight – but preferably also practical and experienced enough to lead Blackwatch. He needed to be able to trust them with the sensitive work, but instead of denying them access to Overwatch, keeping the two groups separate, Gabriel wanted to make sure that Blackwatch was integrated properly into Overwatch itself.

Of all the applicants to the position of Blackwatch Commander, only two were really worth considering.

The first was Ana Amari. She was an undeniable fit for Blackwatch with her unmatched sniping abilities, while also being enough of a well-liked public figure that she didn’t need to be afraid of media attention. A ruthless killer, brilliant strategist, and commanding personality; a loving mother, caring friend, and loyal soldier. Plus, she was easy to get along with, despite being an alpha-beta switch. Usually, those got on Gabriel’s nerves, with their guardedness that he just couldn’t pierce. But Ana was one of the few that actually trusted him in return, so building a connection was easier. She was a good choice for Jack’s second-in-command, so she would undoubtedly bring a lot of expertise with her, should he choose her as his own Lieutenant Commander. Did he really want to risk sending Fareeha’s mother on the kinds of near-suicidal missions Blackwatch seemed to get, though? He knew she could handle herself, and she wouldn’t hesitate to take the job, but could _he_ really take on that responsibility?

The second was Gérard Lacroix. He had a similar background as Gabriel, having worked his way through the military from the bottom up, until the Omnic Crisis, where he made himself a name for his valor and courage in battle. Though not necessarily an experienced leader, Gabriel was confident he would adapt quickly enough. His skills as a soldier were unquestioned, as his track record on the field was impeccable. He, too, was not one to hesitate when given an order, and he had performed admirably under duress with creative decision-making. His personal relationship with Gabriel was more or less neutral, based on politeness and respect, but he was sure they would get along just fine if they had to work more closely in the future, not least due to Gérard being an omega. It made him the instinctual choice with the most potential for improvement – but was he the right one? Especially considering Amélie, who might become a widow due to Gabriel’s choice to send Gérard into the dangerous shark tank that Blackwatch was. Could he do that to the happy couple; to potentially tear them apart forever?

He pondered over the two candidates for days, before he had to admit that it wasn’t a decision he could make on his own. His perspective was too limited – he needed some fresh ideas. So he rose early, grabbed some coffee, added a generous splash of rum to it, and went to the secret alcove.

It wasn’t really secret of course, but fooling himself into believing that helped somehow.

After maybe an hour, he could hear the familiar jingle of spurs, and a moment later the smell of cigar smoke intensified.

“Oh. Mornin’, boss.”

“Good morning, McCree.” He watched the young man shift on his feet uncertainly for a while, before he took pity on him and said: “I need your advice.”

“Really? I mean, uh, yeah, sure. Shoot.”

“Blackwatch,” he blurted out, suddenly feeling stupid about asking advice from a teenager who liked to dress up and talk like a damn cowboy. But he also knew the kid had a good eye for detail, a unique perspective on things. Well, he’d started this shit show, and he was going to see it through to the end. “If you could choose the new Blackwatch Commander, who would it be?”

“You,” McCree replied immediately.

“That’s flattering, but not realistic. Anyone else?” At McCree’s blank face, Gabriel had to give up and sigh: “Ana Amari or Gérard Lacroix?”

Finally, the stunned look on the young man’s face melted into something akin to consideration. He chewed on the butt of his cigar, puffing a few times, before saying: “Lacroix.”

“Why?”

“Cuz Ana’s scary as fuck.”

Gabriel laughed and shook his head.

“What, and I wasn’t scary?”

“Didn’t get a say in you bein’ my boss though,” McCree pointed out helpfully. Then he sobered, and continued: “Also, Lacroix actually gets it, what Blackwatch is for. Ana does what’s necessary, shoots to kill, aims for the head, but she don’t like it. She don’t get it, that it’s more than making the hard choices.”

Gabriel hummed thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. He hadn’t actually looked at it from this angle before. His biggest concern was who would fit best into the pecking order of Blackwatch and come out on top. But which one of them was the best for the future of Blackwatch? Who would actually make Blackwatch something good, release it from the shackles of secrets and lies so it may join Overwatch in the glorious spot of heroism?

“Alright. I’ll talk to Gérard, see what he thinks and let him talk to his wife. If he really wants the job, I’m giving it to him.”

“Wait, what?” McCree spluttered and coughed out a plume of smoke. “Why’d you do what I’m tellin’ you?”

“Because I asked for your advice, and you gave it to me, straight and honest. I appreciate that, McCree. I wouldn’t have asked otherwise.”

If the blush spreading on the younger man’s face was any indication, it had never occurred to him before that someone might trust his judgement. And if that didn’t somehow warm Gabriel’s ice cold heart, then he didn’t know what would.

“Thanks, boss.”

“You’re welcome, kid.”

*

Gabriel wasn’t a passionate runner, not least because he wasn’t that good at it. Sure, he had the stamina to run miles on end weighed down by tactical gear, but he just wasn’t very fast. He was shit at sprinting, probably because he was too heavily built. But from time to time his feet would itch for a good, long run out in the fresh air. Thankfully, the Overwatch HQ’s position atop the Zürichberg, next to the old zoo, meant that there were dozens of quiet trails away from the hubbub of the city center, barely a stone’s throw away.

Donning an old pair of sweatpants, a hoodie, and the oldest, most worn-out track shoes he could find, he snuck out via an unused back entrance. He used the cover of darkness to make his way out unseen, though the vague moonlight was bright enough to keep him from stumbling over any surface irregularities.

Today had been a good day, so he wasn’t running to let off steam – and anyways, punching a bag or shooting some dummies were his go-to activities for doing that. Actually, he was pretty happy with today’s outcome. It was Gérard’s first day as Blackwatch Commander, and after only a few snide comments from the agents – which Gérard shut down efficiently – it looked like they were on track.

Finally, a success.

So now Gabriel was on one of the public running courses, jogging lightly to the beat of electronic music someone had downloaded onto his earbuds. He wasn’t really pushing himself, but the cold air soon forced his lungs into a focused rhythm anyway. His foggy breath streamed past him due to his long strides, and he felt the trance-like state of concentration descend upon his mind, as if he were leaving all his worries and responsibilities behind.

After a few minutes, the cold bite of the wind had settled in his cheeks and fingers, making them stiff and sensitive. He didn’t let this deter him, and continued on, deeper into the reforested area with its lean, young trees that let the moonlight through. The path here was more slippery, so he had to reduce his speed.

He was just about to change his music track to something that better matched the new rhythm of his steps, when the screeching of feedback caused him to shout in pain and pull out the earbuds. Confused, he halted and stared at the offending things cradled in his palm.

He tried to inspect the tiny pieces of technology for any kind of damage, but it was too dark to see. With a soft curse he decided to put them in again anyway – he wasn’t going to carry them in his hands all the way back to base, and he also refused to cut his run short just for some malfunctioning earbuds.

As he continued to jog along the winding path, he felt awkward about the strange way his breath and his surroundings sounded through his plugged ears, but there was nothing to be done about that. Still, it strangely raised his alertness. Suddenly, oddly formed shadows on the edges of his vision took on a menacing meaning, and the sharp crack of frozen gravel under his feet sounded far too similar to muffled gunshots. He felt his breathing, his heartbeat and his steps speeding up quite without his permission. At the next crossing, he decided, he would turn back and return to base.

He nearly missed it, soles skidding, almost slipping on a small patch of ice. Spiky fir needles slapped into his face, and he cursed out loud. This was why he hated running, damn it.

As he sped along the track, this time with the moon in his back, he tried to calm himself again. He hadn’t used his earbuds in a while, they were probably just out of charge. It didn’t mean anything, and he wasn’t compromised. His nerves were just getting the better of him. He was probably just overeager to get back on the field, to fight some enemies and punch a bad guy in the face. Running just wasn’t his kind of stress relief.

Abruptly, he realized that the muffled sounds he was hearing didn’t match with just two feet pounding on the gravelly road. In a gesture masked as a cough he removed one of the earbuds. Indeed, a second set of footsteps, with a slightly quicker frequency than his, perhaps fifteen or twenty feet behind him. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end within a nanosecond.

Gabriel dug his heels into the ground, skidding to a halt smack dab in the middle of the road. Whoever was following him better have a damn good reason, because there was no way he was going to let them just- …

The first thing he saw when he turned around was blinding light. He shielded his eyes from the onslaught of brightness, and the person ran past him in a blast of wind and a polite “ _Grüezi_ ”.

They were wearing a headlamp, he realized, and they were pretty quick on their feet. A man, if the vague form illuminated by the lamp was any indication. He was tall, about Gabriel’s height, and pretty fit.

On the one hand …this _was_ a public trail. But what crazy motherfucker ran it at nearly 3am on a very cold Wednesday in mid-February? Aside from Gabriel, come to think of it.

Gabriel heaved himself into motion again, this time after the stranger. It never hurt to be careful. Overwatch might be here publicly, but the Zürich HQ was by no means well-defended, despite the expensive and sensitive experiments and secrets inside. If the guy turned out to be just an exceptionally diligent Swiss jogger, then fine. But first Gabriel’s earbuds short-circuited for no reason at all, and then this man just showed up out of nowhere? He would rather trust his gut instinct, which told him that something was going on, than to regret it later.

He followed the man along the trail that would lead nearly directly back to the entrance Gabriel used to sneak out. His flashlight bobbed rhythmically, his strides never faltering, and Gabriel actually had to exert himself to keep up with the stranger. The closer they got to the Overwatch HQ, however, the more nervous Gabriel got, specifically about his own behavior. No spy who thinks highly of themselves would ever reveal themselves to Gabriel with a damn flashlight tied to their forehead, right? Did that mean he was basically harassing an innocent Swiss citizen on his nightly jog?

He nearly panicked when, the Overwatch HQ already within sight, the stranger slowed and fell in step with Gabriel. Next to the man’s light-footed strides, he had to look like a fat walrus wheezing his last breath. Still, he tried to see the jogger’s face, but it was half obscured by a ski mask and goggles, and the bright flashlight hid the rest by simply blinding Gabriel.

“I’m sorry,” the man suddenly said, barely out of breath. “But I’m not interested. I’m taken.”

“Me too,” Gabriel blurted out in reply, before he even registered the stranger’s words. “Wait, what?”

By the time his brain caught up, the bobbing flashlight had already disappeared halfway down a different path, and the man gave him a cheeky wave in parting. Stunned, Gabriel nearly ran into a tree.

“So that’s what you’ve been up to.”

Gabriel gave a strangled shout and raised his fists in a defensive position, even as he recognized the voice.

“ _Mierda_ , Kimiko, what the fuck are you doing out here?”

“I could ask you the same thing,” the Japanese top agent replied coolly, watching him from behind her immaculate fringe. “I was looking for you, but you were nowhere on base. Nearly caused a red alert.”

“I’m never going on a run _ever again_ in my life,” he swore and put his hands on his knees. “This is, like, the third heart attack this night.”

Kimiko watched him, unimpressed, as he caught his breath. Much worse than her finding some absurd interest in his night-time activities, the embarrassing exchange with the anonymous jogger wouldn’t leave Gabriel’s mind for some reason. How the hell had the guy known to speak English with him, instead of the weird, guttural local dialect? Was Gabriel wearing the Overwatch logo anywhere on his clothing?

“What did you need me for at zero-shit-hundred hours, anyway?” he asked out loud.

“I wanted to ask you whether you really authorized the Accra mission.”

He froze, still bent over. Accra, capital city of Ghana. Emergence of a terrorist cell. They wanted someone from Blackwatch to infiltrate it, extract information, act as a sleeper agent. It sounded far too dangerous, with far too little promise of reward to Gabriel, but it seemed important nonetheless. Which was why he left it on his desk, to think about some more.

“I didn’t,” he replied calmly.

“Hmm.”

Their eyes met for a moment, a silent exchange of suspicion and wariness. Then, one corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Let’s get inside, Commander Reyes. Or people might start to talk.”

“Alright. Lead the way.”

*

The Accra mission parameters and official orders lay neatly on top of a large pile of classified paper-only files. At the bottom of the first page, Gabriel’s signature crawled its way along the dotted line, hurried and ungainly.

For the love of God, he couldn’t remember signing those papers. So who the fuck did.

“Veronika,” he said, leaning out of his office. “Was anyone in here yesterday after I left? Or today, before I came in?”

“Not to my knowledge, Commander. Why, is something wrong?”

He scrunched up his nose, wondering how much he should tell a woman who already didn’t like or respect him.

“It looks like some work got done that I don’t remember doing myself.”

She gave him an unimpressed look while simultaneously typing on her computer. It was a very striking glare, worthy of any military CO. Gabriel forced a mirroring glare onto his own face, but felt more ridiculous than anything else.

“Well,” Veronika said after a while, “then I would think you should be grateful you are more diligent that you think you are instead of the other way around.”

Grumbling, Gabriel retreated into his office. Maybe he should have told her what the matter was, instead of being overly paranoid. There was no way Veronika could falsify his signature this convincingly, right? But then who could? And on paper no less. Electronic signatures were quite easy to reproduce, but in this case someone would have actually had to break into the office. Why would anyone do that, just to approve a mission?

On top of last night’s suspicious activities, Gabriel started to feel slightly cornered. Warning flags seemed to be popping up all over the place, but none of them had any substantial evidence supporting the queasy feeling in Gabriel’s stomach. Had he really forgotten about putting his signature on the Accra files? The guy who crossed his path last night was with 99% likelihood just a normal dude training for one of those crazy marathons or something. And his earbuds malfunctioning was just as likely, as he barely ever used them. Plus, he could actually have that checked. He didn’t even care how unfair it was to accost some of the world’s greatest engineers and scientists to look at his damn earbuds, but hearing that it was just a broken piece of tech would really, really ease his mind right now.

So he snuck out of his office during Veronika’s short break and crossed the base, all the way to the science wing, and went on the hunt for short, Swedish engineering geniuses. Of which there was only one single entity present, whose name was Torbjorn Lindholm.

Gabriel let himself be led by the melodious sounds of bickering and grumbling until he spotted the older man’s stubby legs poking out from under some sort of hovercraft prototype.

“Hey, Torb, do you have a minute?” he asked, rapping his knuckles on the shiny metal surface of the thing to get the engineer’s attention.

“So, what, now you’re suddenly interested in talking to me, big guy?”

Torbjorn crawled free of the contraption, prosthetic arm snapping at empty air like an angry crab pincers. He was giving Gabriel the classic Lindholm stink eye, which actually meant he was flattered at being the center of attention.

“It’s just a small thing, won’t take long at all, I promise.”

“Well, shoot.”

“Okay, so this is going to sound very trivial, but I went for a run yesterday, and suddenly my earbuds stopped working. Actually, it made a sound like feedback during a rock concert. Scared the shit out of me.”

“Hmm. Might just be a technical malfunction, but it could also be caused by some sort of software bug. Give them to me, I’ll take a look.”

And with that, Torbjorn was off to la la land. His thick, stubby fingers were surprisingly apt at taking apart the tiny piece of technology, dissecting its parts and analyzing them under magnifying glasses and other, more advanced apparatuses. On the one hand, it looked like far too much effort for such a trivial matter. On the other hand, Gabriel was glad that his old comrade was taking this so seriously. It would help put his mind to rest, knowing that Torbjorn had been so thorough in his inspection.

Almost half an hour later, the much shorter man approached him again, the earbuds reassembled to their original form.

“So, I don’t really know how to tell you, but, uh- …” Torbjorn scratched his chin through his impressive beard. “There was some … foreign tech installed into them. From what I could glean, this was fried, most likely by something like an EMP, which his was what caused the feedback you described. I cannot be entirely sure what the foreign tech was for, but it had both transmission and recording abilities.”

“So what are you saying?”

“The earbuds aren’t damaged – I put it back together, so you can still use them. But I removed the tech that didn’t belong. The transmitter.”

“You mean someone bugged by fucking earbuds?” Gabriel asked incredulously.

“That, and somehow the bug got knocked out by some seriously high-tech anti-surveillance measures. Where did you say again you were when it happened?”

“Just outside, jogging. No one else was ar-…”

He cut himself off, staring at the earbuds cradled in his palm. There _had_ been someone with him in that forest – one person, at least, that he could be sure of. More, perhaps, that he wasn’t aware of at the time. But why disable the tracker on Gabriel? Who, and why, would possibly do such a thing? And why reveal themselves to him, if the jogger really somehow had a hand in this?

“Can you tell who the bug was from? Some sort of clue that could tell us who wants to know where I am and what I am doing?”

“No, nothing that I could see,” Torbjorn said regretfully. “But it is highly advanced tech, very likely military or intelligence services. No one else has the money or the people to develop something like that.” And then, after a beat: “You should report this, Gabriel. This is a very serious breach of security. An attack on you, personally!”

“I can’t,” Gabriel growled, fingers clenching. He thought about signed files that he couldn’t remember approving lying atop his desk. He thought about all the times this might have happened before, whenever he stood over Jack, screaming at him over mission orders that pushed Blackwatch further and further into the ugly territory of war crimes. Orders that might never have been signed by Jack’s hand at all. He thought about- … God, he thought about Jack, alone, afraid, trapped in a burning Overwatch issue vehicle. He met Torbjorn’s good eye. “You can’t tell anyone about this. _Anyone_. Do you understand?”

The older man looked at him, clearly taken aback, but nodded his agreement anyway. Some sort of understanding curled the edges of his mouth downwards, and he put his flesh hand reassuringly on Gabriel’s arm.

“What the hell have you gotten yourself into, Gabriel?”

“I don’t know what it is either,” he sighed, weary and shaken. The uncertainty was starting to really unfold now, the suspicion of strange coincidences. Still no proof, no clues. Though there was something else he should check out …

“Commander?”

“Thank you so much for your help, Torb … See you around, I guess,” he said absentmindedly, leaving the engineer’s lab in the direction of the med bay. There was a doctor he needed to see.

*

“Did you ever look at the ME report, doc?”

Angela looked up from the blood pressure meter in her hand, startled blue irises over the edge of her glasses. After a second, she sighed and ripped the apparatus off Gabriel’s arm with more gentleness than her demeanor should allow.

“You’re not here for a medical checkup, are you, Gabriel?”

He rubbed his hand over his exposed chest, and shook his head.

“I know I’m never going to have high blood pressure thanks to the SEP. What I don’t know, though, is whether the jargon I read is true or not. So. Did you read the ME report, or not?”

She gave him another look, this time one that verged on the edge of disappointment.

“I’m assuming you’re talking about the final report on Jack’s death.”

“That’s the one.”

Angela pinched the bridge of her delicate nose before removing her glasses and sitting down heavily on a free stool. She suddenly looked much older than her young years, shadowed by the weight placed atop her shoulders.

“Gabriel, do you really want to do this to yourself? Can’t you just let it rest? Let _Jack_ rest?”

“I just want to know your thoughts. Were there any inconsistencies in the report? Anything at all that you thought was strange, that didn’t add up?” he asked. When Angela didn’t say anything, he huffed a frustrated breath and started redressing himself in the many layers of his uniform.

“He died, Gabriel. It happens. Accidents happen,” she finally said.

But what if it wasn’t an accident. But what about the Accra files, and who knew how many other missions that were approved without the actual consent of the Strike Commander. But what about the tracking device in Gabriel’s earbuds. But what about the suspicions boiling in his stomach. But what about- …

“I value your opinion very much, doc,” Gabriel said, mind made up. “However, recent events have made me question certain truths, and I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t properly investigate those suspicions. So, if you’re not going to help me, then I must firmly ask you to stay out of my way.”

He was finishing up the straps that held his chest plate together, when a fragile hand settled on his. Her skin was surprisingly warm and rough, testament of her hard work.

“Losing Jack like this … I know it must be hard for you. It’s hard for all of us, but especially for you, and I get that.”

“This isn’t about- …”

“We know, Gabriel, we all know,” she continued over his words, forcing him to fall silent. “I can’t imagine what it must be like for you, losing the most important person in your life, the man you shared everything with, so suddenly. But I am your friend, and I’m afraid what might happen if you can’t let go.”

“What do you- …?”

“This is why I can’t just step back and let you go on … _chasing ghosts_.”

Gabriel searched her face, ears ringing with her words and the hammering pulse of his heartbeat. He had felt fine just a few moments ago: worried about the strange happenings and his suspicions about security, sure; angry at the thought that Jack’s death might have been due to the same mysterious interference that seemed to permeate all of Overwatch; afraid that it might happen again, not to him, but to someone else he cared about. But what Angela was talking about, it made him seem like a heartbroken, grief-stricken fool trying to hang onto the last remnants of an already closed case just to avoid having to actually confront the truth of Jack’s death. And it made him think … that maybe she was right. That he was just seeing things where there were none. That he was connecting evidence that was circumstantial at best. That he was grasping at straws, unwilling to accept what really happened.

Angela’s words also put the coil of guilt wound tight around Gabriel’s heart in a completely different perspective. Gabriel had never questioned the close friendship he had with Jack, the deep, profound bond they shared. Even after their spats, after another argument, another screaming match, they always found their way back to each other. Two halves of a whole.

The realization hit suddenly, as clear as day. He had always known it, deep down, of course he did. It just never occurred to him to put a name to the profound connection he felt with Jack – the everlasting awareness of Jack somewhere on the planet, even though they might be miles away from each other; the silent comfort he took in even just a shared glance; the belief that Gabriel would always be there to catch Jack when he fell. Until he wasn’t there. Until Jack died. And still, he loved Jack.

He _loved_ him. God, and his death might have dislodged something inside Gabriel, something more or less vital, like the ability to remain fully in the moment, the awareness of reality that normally made him such a good soldier. But even if it came back one day, there would still be that gaping maw where Jack used to be – the only consolation prize Gabriel’s memories and feelings.

All these months, Gabriel thought that the pain he felt was guilt. Guilt, for not being there when Jack died. Guilt, for not preventing it, for not saving him. Guilt, for having pushed Jack away, for the last words exchanged between them that he _couldn’t remember_ , but somehow he was certain they were laced with anger and poison.

Now he knew that the pain was regret instead. He was never going to know whether Jack loved him in return, but he would take the sting of rejection a thousand times if it meant he could at least hear Jack say “I don’t feel that way about you, Gabriel”. If it meant he could hear Jack whisper his name again. He would relive the Omnic Crisis if only to get the chance to tell Jack how much he regretted calling him his best friend, when in truth he was the love of Gabriel’s life.

The pain he felt was regret, and anger at himself for being blind to the truth in his own heart. It hurt so much, combined with the guilt he still felt, now amplified by the fact that he had let down the man that meant everything to Gabriel. How was he ever able to kid himself into believing Jack was anything less than that?

It felt like losing Jack all over again. Putting a name to the Jack-shaped hole in Gabriel’s heart tore the wound wide open, causing years of repressed misery to flood forth, spilling out until it all started to reveal the festering bitterness underneath.

Gabriel knew that he was being unfair. He never would have deserved Jack’s love anyway. But as much as he blamed himself for the way Jack died, he also couldn’t help but hate Jack just a little bit for leaving him like this in the first place. And it was a familiar hatred too, practiced in years of slowly growing distance, until every contact between them sparked with fury and disappointment, or burning lust that in no way resembled the ardent passion of the earlier days. Gabriel’s heart was well-practiced in loving and hating Jack at the same time – adding grief to the pile wasn’t too far of a stretch.

“It doesn’t go away, does it,” he mumbled, staring blindly at his clenched fists in his lap. He was aware of the tears streaming down his cheeks, and the shortness of his breath, but he couldn’t move, he couldn’t _move on_ , frozen in place and time. Like a ghost light, he felt the corner of his mind where he used to feel Jack’s presence at all times flare up, and he gasped a desperate breath, wishing, hoping against hope- …

It was Angela, one hand resting lightly on his shoulder, head bowed and loose-limbed. Her other hand had found a way to unclench one of Gabriel’s fists. She was drawing a complex pattern onto his palm, drawing away his focus from his mind to his body, until he felt … settled. Less likely to fly apart at the seams.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, and he didn’t know what exactly she was apologizing for, or if it was a gesture of condolence, but he thanked her anyway, if only for the skilled use of her beta abilities.

Where the hell would Overwatch be, without all of its brilliant, crazy, wonderful people?

“Are you really okay to go to Rio de Janeiro tomorrow? If you want, I can diagnose you with something mild, temporary only, that would keep you from being able to travel such long distances,” Angela offered gently, finally withdrawing her hands.

He had almost forgotten about Rio de Janeiro. His first field mission as the Strike Commander of Overwatch since the end of the Omnic Crisis. The UN officially asked Overwatch to help secure a territory recently freed from the influence of a major gang, and for the first time in a very long time, that was actually all Gabriel was asked to do. No subterfuge, no lies, no black ops, no plausible deniability. Kissing babies, smiling into the cameras, and spouting UN propaganda? Piece of cake. It sounded like a fucking vacation, to be honest.

“I’ll be fine, doc. Thanks for worrying, though.”

“If you’re sure,” she said, not sounding very sure herself.

But he was. He needed this, needed to get out of the Zürich HQ, out of the cold; he needed something to do, even if he would prefer it if it were shooting instead of talking. Maybe he was just stir-crazy, and it made him see things. Rio de Janeiro would hopefully cure him of that, and clear his mind of the doubts and suspicions plaguing him.

*

_He would recognize the shape of Jack’s body anywhere, from any angle. From behind, it was the width of his back that gave him away, the casual slant of his feet as he let the tension bleed away. Finally relaxing after a long day._

_“I love you, Jack.”_

_He looked at Gabriel over his shoulder, the corners of his eyes crinkling with mirth, and he couldn’t help but mirror that smile. Even through layers of clothing and armor, Jack was warm under his hand. Solid, strong, vibrant._

_“I love you,” Gabriel repeated, slotting his face into the crook of Jack’s neck, thinking he just didn’t hear it the first time._

_Jack laughed, a quiet rumble that shook his shoulders and vibrated through Gabriel like the summer sun._

_“Do you even know what you’re doing anymore?”_

_Gabriel froze, trying to parse Jack’s words. When he turned around in Gabriel’s arms, there was a mocking, no, almost pitying expression on his face._

_“Now that you’ve got what you always wanted, are you really happy?”_

_Gabriel opened his mouth, desperate to say … something. Anything. But Jack’s hands were around his throat now, icy cold, gun callouses rough- …_

“Gabriel? Hey, Commander.”

Gabriel jerked awake, shocked into alertness by Ana’s low voice, which was nearly drowned out by the hum of the plane’s engines. A rattle went through the aircraft, causing everyone to tense in their seats and grip onto their harnesses that were keeping them from tumbling around like ragdolls.

“What,” he snapped, after the turbulences passed.

“You were making funny faces in your sleep. Everything alright?”

“Yeah, peachy.”

Ana chuckled.

“I thought you liked flying?”

“I like flying just fine,” Gabriel growled. “It’s nothing, just a weird dream.”

“If you say so. We’re touching down soon anyway.”

“Yeah? Got your camera face on?” he asked in return, trying to soften his voice. It wasn’t Ana’s fault that Gabriel was having shit dreams.

“Always,” she replied.

“Alright, loves, ETA one minute! Any last words, Commander Reyes?” came Lena’s chipper voice through the speakers.

“Just do you damn jobs and look pretty doing it!” he shouted over the noise of the engines fighting against gravity.

“Yessir!”

Rio de Janeiro was nothing more but a poster presentation for Overwatch – a huge PR fest for the organization, for the UN, for the new Strike Commander and the five most recognizable heroes’ faces. Right now, those were Ana, Reinhardt, Lena, Angela and Gabriel. Along with them came Al-Farouk, Singh and Bayless, the only other Overwatch field agents cleared for combat operations at the moment. Not that they were going to encounter any major resistance, the Brazilian pacifier units already having dealt with the local gang. Overwatch was just here to help secure civilians, contraband and any last straggling gang members.

Lena set their bird down as gently as a feather, and as they rolled out in a neat formation, Gabriel spearheading their company, he nearly groaned in relief as the hot, humid Brazilian air settled on his skin. Finally, no more damn snow. At least for a few days.

Gabriel made a show of coordinating with the commander of the pacifier unit that took down the gang, as well as the local police, the military that was present on site, and the various NGOs here to lend first aid, including the IRC and the MSF. Aside from Overwatch, the UN had also sent their peacekeepers, and several convoys with relief aid. The turmoil and confusing tangle of ranks, associations, authorities and goals was reminiscent of any warzone Gabriel had ever been in. Judging by the state of the infrastructure and the hardened look on the locals’ faces, calling the conflict that was forcefully resolved by the pacifier units a war was not too far-fetched.

It was the obvious choice to send Angela to liaise with the IRC and MSF, and he decided to send Singh and Bayless along with her as her escort. Al-Farouk and Lena he asked to tag along with the police to make sure the civilians weren’t going to interfere with the ongoing investigation and cleanup. He himself took Ana and Reinhardt along to accompany the pacifier unit on their last sweep of the area, to look for any last gang members to round up, weapons stashes, contraband and the like. The pacifier commander, a man named De Oliveira, wasn’t all too happy about the UN’s lapdogs yapping at his heels – or at least that was what Gabriel gleaned from what he understood of the man’s grumbled Brazilian Portuguese thanks to his own knowledge of Spanish.

Gabriel didn’t like how blindly the pacifiers had them run into possibly hostile territory, so he quietly signaled Ana to split off and keep an eye on their flank and retreat. Reinhardt immediately readied his shield, but kept it inactive for the moment.

“I don’t like this,” Gabriel murmured into his comms, fingers clenching and unclenching on his custom shotguns. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use them.

The streets were abandoned, quiet as a graveyard. The rundown shacks, huts and the little infrastructure they encountered were all dilapidated or makeshift – hundreds of opportunities for an ambush, thousands of possible hidey-holes. If anyone was waiting to take them by surprise, this was the perfect place.

“Amari?”

“Everything quiet, no movement. Open field ahead.”

Just as Ana said this, they entered a small square, and De Oliveira told his men to split up and search the surrounding buildings. Gabriel signaled Reinhard to stay close to him, and remained more or less in the open, with a good view of all the entry- and exit points to their current position. Things were quiet for a few minutes, until he heard one of the pacifiers shout for De Oliveira, saying he found something. Gabriel followed the voices to a small hut, where apparently a crate full of weapons was buried. MPs, rifles, even some mines and other explosives.

“Good job,” De Oliveira said in English, grinning smugly and pointing at Reinhard. “Big man can carry this.”

Reinhardt looked at Gabriel for confirmation, who grudgingly gave it.

“Moving to a different angle”, came Ana’s voice through the comms, as soon as the pacifiers moved out again to search the next sector.

The heat was slowly getting to Reinhardt in his bulky Crusader armor, in addition to the crate of weapons he was carrying, so Gabriel let themselves fall back a bit to bring up the rear end of their search party. From time to time, Ana would report on the surroundings, but everything seemed quiet. All the civilians either fled on their own, or were evacuated by the police forces. The pacifiers seemed to be jumpy, however, as one of them suddenly let go a spray of bullets, only to shoot a stray dog. Gabriel had to keep himself from dragging the offender through the mud by his ear.

“Damn animal,” he muttered, and didn’t mean the poor dog.

The resulting tense atmosphere did nothing to ease Gabriel’s worries. What little support and cover the no doubt elite soldiers of the pacifier unit could give them he discounted due to their obvious dislike of the Overwatch presence. There was no communication from De Oliveira to Gabriel, leaving him and Reinhardt blind on the field except for Ana’s reconnaissance. Plus, the incident with the stray dog proved that the pacifiers were nervous for reasons Gabriel couldn’t yet fathom. Were they expecting major resistance? If so, why not warn the Overwatch agents and request their support?

Gabriel made a show of searching some of the makeshift huts they passed, Reinhardt a steady presence at his back. He tried not to pry too much into what amounted into the local residents’ private lives, but caught snippets anyway. Here, someone was interrupted while cooking a stir fry. Over there, the scattered toys of a child. In this room, there was the lingering smell of sickness and death.

As they moved through the houses, Gabriel started to wonder why exactly the UN wanted them to be here. There was, technically, already a presence of UN blue helmets, and the Brazilian pacifier units were clearly not happy about Overwatch interference. How much politics was involved in this little show, that had actual, real life consequences for each and every one of the people living in the buildings Gabriel stalked through?

He was about to make a sweep of a larger, more elaborately built house, when he suddenly heard a noise that he knew all too well: a gun being loaded. He gave Reinhardt the signal to stop, drop his cargo, and ready his shield, before slowly opening the door. But before he could even get a peek of the interior layout, a fist connected with Gabriel’s jaw, sending him crashing into the doorway.

“Hostile detected!” Reinhardt bellowed.

Gabriel quickly regained his bearing and caught the shadow of the attacker rounding the corner. He quickly signaled Reinhardt to go around the house and cut off possible back exits.

“I’m in pursuit!” Gabriel barked. “Ana, visual?”

He followed after the assailant – male, tall, wide shoulders, athletic build, wearing lightweight protective armor – chasing him first through the living room, and then the kitchen, where the attacker didn’t even hesitate to vault through the window.

“I see him,” came Ana’s calm voice. “He’s going north. Take a left, then straight ahead, and you might cut him off.”

Gabriel didn’t bother to acknowledge, and simply jumped after the attacker, landing out on the street with a smooth roll. He followed Ana’s directions and holstered his shotguns for higher agility.

The guy was _fast_. Faster than Gabriel, at least, and in the tight corners, narrow passageways and general limited space of the streets, definitely more nimble than Reinhardt, who quickly gave up the chase. The way the attacker utilized windows, back-alleys and other shortcuts suggested that he knew the area quite well – which put Gabriel at a serious disadvantage.

Ana tried to direct him through the convoluted layout from her perch, but soon enough they were leaving her range of vision. And still Gabriel couldn’t close in on the assailant.

Seeing him zip past just on the other side of a small hut, Gabriel made a desperate, split-second decision. With a roar he barged straight through the paper-thin walls instead of going the long way around, and managed to catch his foe’s elbow. This sent them both crashing into the house vis-à-vis, and gave Gabriel the edge he needed to incapacitate his opponent.

Or so he thought.

Apparently, he wasn’t just fast, but also more slippery than an eel. Before Gabriel could get him into an immobilizing grip, he was already back on his feet, and kicking. Gabriel only barely blocked the first fist flying towards his face, and got hit by a steel-capped boot in the knee. Thankfully, the armor of his own boots protected him from most of the pain, but it still meant he was temporarily on the defense.

Quickly wanting to change that, he focused all of his senses, honing in on his enemy’s movements. He dodged the next two hits, aimed at his kidneys and nose respectively. And then he took the initiative. First, he feinted at his opponent’s throat to get him off balance, and then swept his feet out from under him. The man landed on his back with a crack and a groan, and Gabriel followed up by flipping him around and bending his arm into an angle that threatened to dislocate the shoulder.

“And stay down,” Gabriel growled, and tapped his comms. “Ana, do you have my location? I got the motherf- …”

Before he could report his success, the man had used his divided attention to counter the grip he had him in. He wiggled out from under Gabriel, and kicked him in the chest for good measure.

“ _Hijo de puta_ ,” Gabriel cursed, coughing from the force of the kick, and then charged after the attacker once more.

He didn’t get very far. Gabriel was met with the muzzle of a pulse pistol as he rounded the next corner, which also gave him a good view of his opponent’s face. Or it would have, were the attacker not wearing a ski mask of all things, alongside red-tinted goggles. The pistol twitched upwards, and Gabriel grudgingly lifted his hands in the air.

“Hey, buddy, no need to- …”

He broke off with a shout, ducking beneath the spray of pulse shots that peppered the wall behind him. But before he could even draw his shotguns or duck behind cover, his opponent had once again used his distraction, this time to disappear seemingly into thin air.

“Fuck,” he cursed, and tapped his comms. “Amari, I lost him. Do you have visual?”

A few seconds, and then: “Negative, Commander.”

“He might still be nearby. I’ll take a look around.”

“Acknowledged.”

“I hear you, Commander,” Reinhardt butted in as well. “I’ll keep the Brazilians updated.”

Gabriel clicked his comms off again and first took a look around in the immediate vicinity. The bullet holes from the pulse pistol showed surprisingly good aim despite the tendency for inaccuracy in such weapons – but all the markers were well above where Gabriel’s head would have been, even if he hadn’t ducked out of the way. If the guy didn’t want to shoot Gabriel, then why pull a gun on him in the first place?

There were two possible paths the assailant might have taken to escape, and Gabriel was just about to follow one of them, when he spotted something small and bright in the corner of his eye. A slip of paper. A clue?

He bent down to pick it up. All it read was:

> AVU RCS UXMPN WREQAXH
> 
> RZ: BCFS EHSMZ GFZR HG CQB, GRMS

Clearly some sort of code. Did the assailant leave this behind? On purpose, even? Something about all of this was off, but Gabriel couldn’t put his finger on it.

Wary, he pocketed the note and decided to drop the case for now. Giving chase in this labyrinth was clearly not going to work out, seeing as his opponent was on his home turf. But maybe the coded message might reveal some evidence.

He’d had enough mystery for the day, though, so he turned around to regroup with Ana and Reinhardt. Perhaps their actual mission was going to be more successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please tell me what you think? :3 And let's see who manages to crack the code! I'll give you two hints and reveal that it's a Vigenère cipher, and the key can be found in the first chapter ... and for anyone who can't crack it, Gabriel will tell you the solution in the next chapter of course.
> 
>  **Headcanons 'n random stuff:**  
>  1\. Jesse is a beta-omega switch. Ana is alpha-beta, Gérard is omega, Angela, Torbjörn, Liao and Genji are beta, Amélie, Kimiko and Reinhardt are alpha. At least that's what I was thinking, idk ...  
> 2\. Someone told me how different American and European pizza is, and as a European who's had a ton of genuine Italian pizza I can't understand why you would hate that paper-thin, crispy crust <3  
> 3\. The Brazilian pacifier units I mention in the Rio section are my version of the contemporary UPP, the "police pacification unit" program that's supposed to "clean up" the favelas in Rio de Janeiro, but they are criticized for their brutality and kill rates - go look them up if you want to know more, there are documentaries on YouTube and stuff. EDIT: This section used to take place in São Paulo - I switched location because a) there are no favelas in SP, and b) I don't remember why I switched locations ... lol  
> 4\. I'm Swiss, and I study in Zürich, so forgive me for geeking out about things related to that. In case anyone knows the area/bothers to google it, I headcanon the Overwatch HQ in the spot where the FIFA HQ is right now (one corrupt organization exchanged for another, I guess *cough cough*), but the area would look very different, obviously.


	3. You're in our talons now, and we're never letting go

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I have no idea how an organization like Overwatch would ever work, or what a Strike Commander actually does - so far I've dodged it quite well, I think. Also, all the hints I'm dropping are probably far too obvious for you guys, but ye ... Suspension of disbelief ahoi!
> 
> Lots of familiar faces and names in this chapter, plus a surprise guest in the first section!
> 
> Some **semi-spoilery warnings** in the end notes, folks! Please check them out, if you have any strong triggers or are squicked easily.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> PS: Chapter title from Bowerbirds' "In Our Talons", obviously. Hah, get it? gET IT?! *crazed laughter*

Gabriel forlornly stared at the empty bottom of his champagne glass, and sighed. He was feeling tipsy, despite his enhanced metabolism, and that in and of itself was an achievement. But apparently he wasn’t used to being drunk anymore, so Ana dragged him to this corner, and forced him into a timeout.

“Maybe you should take a break.”

A break from what, though. A break from the men and women he was forced to shake hands with, even though their honeyed words clogged up Gabriel’s throat until he felt like screaming? A break from the looks he seemed to get from his team-mates and friends? A break from the enormous, thrice-cursed banner covering one entire wall of himself, staring heroically into the distance as Angela stood behind him with the wings of her Valkyrie suit spread in a golden halo?

“Archangel Gabriel, the messenger of God,” he heard someone say. Like they were the first to make that absolutely original connection. First time he ever heard that, really.

They were supposed to celebrate the founding of Overwatch. The official founding, anyways. No one ever spoke of the day Gabrielle Adawe knocked together six heads and told them to save the world. The name had been an in-joke, too. The six of them, meant to watch over all of humanity. Impossible. And yet, here they were today, so much more, and so much less than that.

They weren’t here to celebrate any of that, only the money in the pockets of the men – and few women – who thought they were in charge. Where was the joy, for the people hale and whole thanks to their efforts? Where was the grief, for all those lost in the battles fought in the name of peace and prosperity?

Miserable, he scanned the crowd for the dark blue glittery monster Ana was wearing tonight, and when he couldn’t see her – which didn’t mean she wasn’t perching somewhere, with a hairline cross pointed at the back of his head – he snuck to the bar to get himself another drink. A stiffer one, this time. It nearly burned, going down. But it also didn’t burn nearly enough.

A few women, and men too, thought they were being sneaky, and tried to ask him to dance with them. He politely declined each and every one of them. Not that he wouldn’t like to dance, or wasn’t a good dancer. He was a great dancer, in fact. But he’d rather not, on the one hand due to the booze weighing down his feet and making his head spin, and on the other hand due to the nearly predatory glint in the eyes of his suitors. Because apparently the Overwatch pin with the bright blue ribbon attached to it that declared him Strike Commander made him an ‘eligible’ bachelor, instead of just a sad old loner.

Crossing to the other side of the room, he discovered something of a shrine dedicated to Jack. It was just as mall table with a picture of Jack, a few notes, letters and newspaper clips, and old-fashioned candles dripping wax everywhere. Gabriel couldn’t stand to look at it for too long. The picture they put up was particularly … offensive. It wasn’t the Jack that Gabriel remembered, or wanted to remember; nor was it the Jack that Gabriel missed with every fiber of his being. The Jack they worshiped with paper and wax belonged to Gabriel the Archangel of Overwatch – and both of them were fiction, an easy story, a lazy metaphor.

But the thought of Jack also reminded him of all the things around him that were wrong, and he had to seek refuge in a small, darkened alcove. He one-handedly fumbled around in his pocket – his PA, Veronika, organized the rental suit he was wearing, and she might have misjudged his bulk, as the trousers sat quite snugly around his crotch and thighs, and the jacket strained around his shoulders and biceps. In the end, he had to give up and set down his empty glass on the floor, because apparently getting his phone out of his back pocket demanded the use of both hands.

He just wanted to look at it again. Maybe the message miraculously changed, or he misremembered it.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

PS: YOU LOOK GOOD IN BLUE, GABE

No, it was still the same. He put it into a decryption tool he found online last night just before bed, because he didn’t want to wait for it to decode it. When he read it this morning, shock lanced through his body, numbed his mind. And still, the words clawed into Gabriel’s bones, filling them up with dread and anger. At the warning tone lacing the message, and the sheer audacity of it. But even worse than the quiet threat in this short note was the key used to encrypt it: _charlotte_. The same as the password for Jack’s computer. The name of Jack’s sister, for Heaven’s sake. What did any of this mean? What was he supposed to do now?

“ _Hola_.”

He jumped, nearly dropping his phone. Then he mutely stared at the little girl standing innocently in front of him. She looked out of place, here, among all the suits and ball gowns – not to speak of the fact that she was a child among adults. And yet she also looked incredibly unremarkable, except for her backpack, that was connected to some sort of glove on her left hand via a garishly pink cord.

“¿ _Hola_?” he replied, slowly, uncertainly. Maybe he was hallucinating. That was a common side-effect of intoxicatioin, right?

“Are you Gabriel Reyes?” the child asked him, blinking up at him with big, brown eyes.

“Uh, yeah. And who are you?”

“I’m not supposed to tell my name to strangers.”

“That’s … uh, smart,” Gabriel said, feeling quite stupid himself. “Aren’t you supposed to be … I don’t know … Where are your parents?”

“Dead,” she piped, completely impassive.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” She eyed him from head to toe, apparently finding something to her satisfaction. “Did you get the message, Gabe? Can I call you Gabe?”

Her words were like a punch to the gut, but Gabriel tried not to let anything show on his face. Quickly, he tore his eyes from the girl, and scanned his surroundings for anything out of place. Was he being watched right now? Was this girl a decoy? A distraction? Or was she the threat?

When he couldn’t immediately spot anything, he surged forward and threw his arms around the child, dragging her behind him despite her protests. He crowded her against the wall with his forearm and held a finger to his lips to get her to quiet down.

“What’s in that backpack? Who told you to talk to me? I can help you,” he hissed, trying to examine the pink cord leading from the backpack to the girl’s hand. Did they strap a bomb to her? Was there a remote detonator or was it in her glove? Could he get it off her without injuring her, or was the bomb’s charge connected to her spine like in those horrible terror attacks a few years back?

“Get your hands off my equipment,” she growled, interrupting his train of thought, and clawed at his arm. “No one sent me, I’m just here to help _you_! I’m supposed to warn you of- …!”

“Sir, is there a problem?”

Gabriel groaned under his breath and closed his eyes. He could already see the headline in front of him: _OVERWATH’S STRIKE COMMANDER FOUND MOLESTING CHILD AT ANNUAL GALA._ What a way to go.

“Please help me!” the girl cried, actual tears running down her face that made her look another couple of years younger than she was. “I want my mommy!”

“Oh my, how did she get in here?”

“Is there anyone we should call for you, sweetheart?”

Suddenly, there was a whole gaggle of people surrounding them, and Gabriel forced himself to let the girl go, hoping she wouldn’t just up and disappear. Someone apparently called security, and they tried to get her away as discreetly as possible, but the child continued to sob and wail, while clinging to Gabriel’s leg like a leech. Despite the fear clawing at his throat, he tried to reason with both the child and the security detail sent to deal with the problem simultaneously.

“If she doesn’t want to let go of me, then I’ll escort her back outside. We’ll find someone to take her home,” he told the guard next to him. And then to the girl, in Spanish. “ _Is there a bomb in your backpack? Who sent you?_ ”

“ _Of course not, idiot_ ,” she snapped back, before the guard could say something. “ _And I sent myself … sort of._ ”

The poor man looked between them in confusion, and then told Gabriel to follow him to the next exit. Not wanting to deal with another screaming fit, Gabriel simply picked the girl up from the floor and carried her on his hip.

“ _Give me your phone_ ,” the girl demanded, squeezing out another few fake tears.

She really was an amazing actress, he thought to himself, as he warily handed her the piece of technology. At the guard’s frown, he said: “She wants to call her parents.”

As far as he could tell, she really was dialing a number, but only after minutes of fiddling around. He’d have to hand in his phone for a bug check and diagnostics later.

“ _Yes, I found him_ ,” she said into the phone, in rapid-fire Spanish, giving Gabriel the stink eye. “ _He doesn’t believe- … No, I couldn’t tell him yet. They’re going to notice me soon, and then I’ll be- … Next time you do it yourself, stupid. Come pick me up … No, I don’t know which entrance. Somewhere southeast … Well, you better figure it out on your own, I’m not waiting outside in the cold._ ”

“ _Who were you talking to?_ ” he asked her, after she handed him his phone back.

“ _If you can’t even check phone numbers, then I can’t help you_ ,” she spat derisively, examining the nails of her left hand.

“Sassy,” Gabriel muttered to himself.

They finally reached some sort of back entrance that led to the gardens surrounding the building, and a path that brought them to a ridiculous iron fence. The guard opened a small gate and let them through, looking about as thrilled to be here as the man waiting for them there. Well, Gabriel couldn’t see his face, as he was wearing a helmet – shiny black, to match his massive motorcycle and black leather getup – but the crossed arms and shake of the head were a pretty good indicator.

“Are you her guardian?” Gabriel asked, and set the girl down on the rain-slick ground. The man just grunted in reply and tossed a bright lilac helmet at the child. She caught it with an annoyed groan, and turned back to look at Gabriel.

“ _By the way, I was just supposed to tell you to check something – the last files accessed from terminal 0076-01-1. You can access it from your own terminal at the Swiss HQ, and the password is the same as it used to be. I have to go now, though, or he_ ,” she pointed at the biker over her shoulder, “ _is going to pop a vein or something. But it was nice meeting you, I guess._ ”

“Wait, you- …?”

Gabriel got cut off by the intimidating roar of the motorcycle’s engines revving, but the man and the girl actually drove off at a rather reasonable speed. As they pulled away, the child turned around and waved at Gabriel.

“You can call me Sombra, by the way!”

Gabriel waited on the side of the street until the red taillights of the motorcycle had disappeared, and then brushed past the security guard to return back to the party. He was pretty confident he could find the way himself, so he didn’t bother to wait for the man to catch up, instead checking the number the girl – Sombra – had dialed from his phone. He copied the number, and then attached it along with the sneaky pictures he’d made of the motorcycle’s license plate to an email that he promptly sent to Liao with an “urgent” as well as a “top secret” notice. It didn’t even take a full minute until his phone lit up again.

“Boss, what the fuck.”

“Good evening to you too, my dear Liao,” Gabriel couldn’t help but quip.

“First I have to hear from Ana that you got drunk, then she texts me that you apparently kidnapped a little girl, and now you want me to stalk some dude you just met?”

“Well, if you put it like that it sounds really bad, but- …”

“The number plate is obviously French, and it’s registered to a Jean-Jacques Duchamps from Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle. But get this,” Liao powered on, with no regard for either Gabriel or the problematic implications the Chinese cyber specialist pointed out previously. “Jean-Jacques Duchamps from Saint-Maurice-sur-Moselle is ninety-eight years old. Or would be, were he still alive. He died last year.”

Gabriel took a deep breath and bit his tongue to keep himself from cursing out loud.

“Something’s fishy, then.”

“Alright, but it gets even weirder. The phone number? It’s a US burner number.”

“So how does a ninety-eight year old dead French guy have a US burner phone and drive around on the streets of Geneva on a motorcycle,” Gabriel deadpanned.

“Yeah. Or something like that.”

Gabriel disconnected the call before Liao could say more or get too far ahead in trying to figure it all out. He didn’t need to involve anyone else in this, not unless strictly necessary. And right now, it seemed pretty clear that whoever Sombra was working for, were on the one hand the same people that also sent him the encrypted threat, and on the other hand they were clearly not on the right side of the law, or they wouldn’t need to protect their identity like this. It would be a logical conclusion to say that the man Gabriel just saw was the same as the one that nearly kicked his ass in São Paulo, but they could also simply be operatives of the same organization.

What he really needed, right now, was more information. And as helpful as Liao was, he didn’t want to paint a target on any of his friends’ backs. The first step, as dangerous as it was to listen to a potentially hostile operative – even if it was a little girl – was clearly to access the terminal Sombra spoke of. Now, there were many such terminals, especially since they recently created logins for nearly all the agents and employees, and the Zürich HQ housed most of them. There was nearly no way to tell whose terminal 0076-01-1 was. But there really was just one that mattered. Because it always came back to this. To _him_.

And it couldn’t be a coincidence that the key to the encrypted message was the same as the password of Jack’s office computer. The computer, from which he would have had access to said terminal.

“Everything alright, Gabriel?”

“I’m fine, Ana. Fresh air works wonders.”

He could see that she didn’t buy his forced smile, but she didn’t say anything and let him lead her onto the dance floor, while the Archangel stared down onto them with a demanding frown. They swayed without any rhythm or form to some stiff formal dance music, their movements not determined by choice but by the need to dodge the other pairs actually dancing. Gabriel let the comforting familiarity of Ana’s warmth in his arms lull him into a state of relaxed nothingness, where he could let all the tension and swirling emotions drain from his mind. Just the two of them, they were an island of quiet and comfort amidst an ocean of uncertainty and power plays. At least, until Gabriel’s phone started vibrating in his pocket, and Ana poked his side to get his attention.

“No rest for the weary, huh?” she said, eyes liquid and warm as she watched him fumble to accept the call.

“It’s Angela,” he whispered, and then: “What is it, doc?”

He vaguely felt Ana take his elbow and steer him into a quieter corner of the room, but soon everything fell away as he was forced to fully focus on Angela’s words.

“… so sorry for pushing it away, and I really didn’t- … I couldn’t let it rest after you said that, and now I don’t know what to do, it’s- …”

“Angela,” he growled, zeroing in on the panic in her voice. “Take a deep breath. Start from the beginning.”

“Gabriel, oh God, it’s _Jack_.”

He felt his breath hitch in his throat, a strange mixture of hope and dread entangling in his chest until he had to gasp for breath.

“Angela, tell me …”

“The ME report,” she finally continued. “I looked at it again, like you asked me to, before I dismissed your concerns. Gabriel, there is … There are inconsistencies. And I don’t know what they imply about Jack’s death.”

Gabriel had to hold his phone away from his face to keep the wheezing sounds coming out of his mouth from reaching the doctor’s ears. He knew it. He felt it. There was something wrong, there was something else …

“Tell me everything,” he demanded, and then, quieter: “But not right now. As soon as I get back, you show me what you found.”

“Gabriel, are you sure? It’s not actually much, but I … I saw it, and I couldn’t shake this feeling that you might have been right, and I just told you to forget about it, and I’m so sorry- …”

“Not now, Angela.”

“Oh. Alright. I’ll- …” She cut herself off with a long sigh, and then abruptly ended the call.

“Gabriel, is everything alright?”

He couldn’t help but laugh – an irrational reaction, that garnered him a worried look from Ana, but it was just too funny. Because nothing was alright, and he didn’t know how to handle anything about the situation that just seemed to get more and more complicated.

“It’s fine,” he lied. “I’ll handle it when we get back.”

The worry and pity in Ana’s eyes hardened into something crueler and sadder. It hurt Gabriel to lie to her like this. She was his friend, had been for many hard, difficult years. Through thick and thin, through strife and war, through distance and disappointment. To cut her off from something this crucial … But no, he couldn’t involve anyone else in this. Because Angela’s words confirmed it: whatever this was, it had very likely killed Jack. It might kill Gabriel too, and he would deal with that when it happened. But he couldn’t with good conscience allow Ana to endanger herself. It was bad enough that Angela knew … something.

“I’ll deal with it later. It’ll be alright,” he said, both to himself and Ana.

Neither quite believed him.

*

Angela was wringing her hands uncertainly as she hovered behind Gabriel, peeking over his shoulder at the digital documents of the autopsy report.

“So what exactly am I looking at?” he asked after a few seconds of terse silence.

“There’s nothing wrong with the report itself,” Angela blurted out. “As far as I can tell, the examination was performed diligently, and the results match with the second, third, and fourth opinion we obtained.”

“That’s not why you called me during an important function, in distress, and worried.”

“No. It’s- … The report is fine, as I said. But there is something wrong with the meta data.”

“Meaning?” Gabriel asked and leaned aside to let Angela tap at the holoscreen.

“There is data behind this file that tells us who wrote it, where and when it was written, and sometimes even who else accessed it. Several of these pieces of information simply make no sense. Look,” she pointed at a section of the report, “this is a shorthand symbol, usually the initials of the ME that performed the postmortem examination. And here is the timestamp, when the report was handed in. The thing is … no one with these initials works at the morgue where Jack’s body was examined the first time. And the timestamp reads a time when his body shouldn’t even have reached the morgue yet.”

“What? Are you sure?”

Gabriel incredulously peered at the file floating in front of them. The shorthand symbol … SOM. Could it be? Was this another hint, another breadcrumb tossed his way? What was the likelihood of Gabriel meeting a girl that told him to call her Sombra, and mere hours later Angela was showing him what looked like a doctored ME report with the first three letters of the girl’s call sign neatly wedged between the institute’s logo and the – apparently fake – time stamp? It said that the report was handed in at 1:26am, which coincided perfectly with the time when the paramedics declared Jack dead. So the autopsy couldn’t have possibly been performed already.

“What does this mean?” Angela whispered, wringing her hands again. “Maybe it’s just an error. Easily explained. A typo. But what if not? What are we supposed to do now?”

Gabriel stared at the file for a few seconds, contemplating.

“The autopsy was done at the university hospital, right?”

“Yes.”

“Do you have any contacts there? Anyone we might speak to about this?”

“Yes, I do, of course I do. I studied here, you know. There has to be someone who can explain this,” Angela muttered, a nearly hysteric edge to her voice. “No, it has to be a mistake. But you told me to look, and when I did I noticed this, and- …”

“Angela.”

Her eyes snapped up to meet his, and he carefully put a hand on her delicate shoulder, trying to seem as calm and confident as he didn’t feel.

“Angela,” he repeated, “contact them and ask for clarification. We’re going to find out what happened, one way or another.”

“I’ll call them now,” she finally said.

It turned out that the person responsible for the ME report was more than happy to conference call them back and clear up any questions they might have – or at least that was what Angela’s contact told them. Only minutes later, Gabriel and Angela sat in her locked office in front of her computer, trying to contain their nervous energy.

“Is this on?”

The man peering uncertainly into the camera – and by proxy, staring at them – was rail-thin, and had mousy, thinning hair. It fit perfectly with the anxiousness that was nearly visible in a frightened cloud around him.

“Ah, Dr. Thürig. I am Dr. Angela Ziegler, and this is Commander Gabriel Reyes. We are with Overwatch, as you might know.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Nice to, ah, speak with you. How may I help you?”

“Are you comfortable speaking English with us?” Gabriel interrupted quietly. “If you’d rather speak German, I’m sure my colleague could translate for me.”

“No, no, it’s alright,” Thürig muttered, failing to discreetly wipe the sweat off his forehead. “So, this is about the, uh, postmortem. Of the … your p-predecessor. Jack Morrison. It was a very, uh, straightforward case. Blunt force trauma to the neck, if I recall correctly. Not, as one might presume, the, the, uh, burning, or asphyxiation. Quite straightforward, yes. Is there anything specific you wanted to know?”

“Well …” Angela hesitated, and threw Gabriel a panicked look.

“Dr. Thürig, we noticed a discrepancy, not with the report itself, but the meta data attached to it. Was it you who performed the autopsy, and filed the report?”

“Yes, yes that was me.”

“Then please explain to me how you finished the report the exact minute Jack Morrison was declared dead by paramedics on the site of the accident,” Gabriel demanded, channeling as much of his authority and dominance into his voice as he could.

“What?” Thürig said weakly. “There … That must be a mistake. There was a lot of pressure, we were under time pressure, someone must have- …”

“Someone?” Gabriel pressed. “Who is SOM? Who filed the report?”

“S- …? SOM? There is no one on my team with that- …”

“ _We know_!”

Gabriel leaned back, suddenly aware that he was gripping the mounting brackets of the holoscreen, and his voice had been so loud it broke halfway through the first word. Dr. Thürig looked pale enough to soon need a postmortem examination himself, and Gabriel guiltily averted his eyes.

“Tell us who filed that report.”

“Oh God, it was just- …” Thürig rubbed his face with trembling hands. “We performed the postmortem, per standard procedure. Everything was fine, until I went to file the ME report. Because there _already was one_. With the exact same content, everything that I meant to mention, everything we discovered, down to the last detail. I … I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t just delete it and replace it … with the exact same thing? And there can’t be two identical postmortem reports on the same person, apart from second or third opinions. So … I just left it. Treated it like I wrote it. Because for all intents and purposes, I might have. It was so good, such a perfect copy.”

“Except for the wrong shorthand symbol, and the obviously fake time stamp,” Gabriel added.

“Yes.” Thürig nodded, visibly tired and weary. “But I can’t help you. I don’t know how the report got there, or who filed it. All I can tell you that I didn’t write it, but its contents are accurate, and that is my professional opinion. I’m sure you had it confirmed by others.”

“We did,” Angela said quietly. “Thank you, Dr. Thürig.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I really am.”

Gabriel disconnected the call before the man could say anything else – or worse, have a complete breakdown.

“Well, that wasn’t useful at all,” he growled. “We still don’t know who did this, or why, or what it means.”

“It means,” Angela said slowly, her eyes staring into the middle distance, “that someone already knew exactly what kinds of injuries Jack would sustain. How he was going to die, and when.”

The implications of that were unthinkable. It crushed everything they thought they knew, stomped on it with a heel and ground it into dust. Was anything at all certain about this? Athena was the one who noticed the accident, thanks to the Overwatch sign plastered onto the side of the car. Blaringly obvious, Overwatch only used it for official purposes that looked good on camera. Jack driving after them to join the Chrismas party was neither official, nor were there any cameras. Until the accident, that is. Were those images already doctored? Specifically broadcast, knowing that Athena – who so far was only connected to small-radius, closed-off systems like the cabin – would pick up on it? And it was Athena that confirmed that Jack was the last person to log in on this specific vehicle’s access terminal. Could they even afford to believe those digital records? Could they afford to believe Athena, who, as much as they liked having her around and pretend that she was a real person that improved their efficiency by at least 150%, was still just an AI?

No, it wasn’t Athena. Someone merely got past her defenses and altered … everything. The records, the broadcast, the signals, everything pertaining to Jack and the accident that took his life. The next question was, was whoever doctored the evidence also responsible for the accident itself? Was it not so much an accident, but _murder_? If SOM really was Sombra, could a girl have orchestrated the assassination of the Strike Commander of Overwatch? But then why would she reveal herself to him at the anniversary gala; why alert them to the fact that Jack’s car crashed in the first place? Had Athena not spotted the Overwatch logo, had the children not skipped through the channels in search of a Christmas movie, had the station not broadcast what initially just looked like an unfortunate accident …

The implications were _unthinkable_.

“Don’t tell anyone, doc,” Gabriel said.

“What? But Gabriel- …!”

“We can’t, Angela. We need to investigate this properly; can’t just throw around wild accusations like that. And we don’t know who did this. Anyone could have done it.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“You think it was someone in Overwatch?”

“Not necessarily,” he said, thinking of the bug in his earbuds, and the message: YOU ARE BEING WATCHED. Someone from the outside could be trying to monitor him just as well as someone on the inside. But it didn’t explain the other strange occurrences, like Gabriel’s signature appearing on documents he’d never seen.

The puzzle was not yet complete, but there was one more avenue Gabriel hadn’t investigated so far. The terminal, 0076-01-1. He couldn’t fully trust Sombra’s intel, not if she was the one to have possibly tampered with the postmortem examination report. But it was the only clue left.

“There is something I need to look at,” he told Angela. “You concentrate on your work, and keep your head down.”

“Are you sure this is the right thing to do? Just do nothing?”

“Says the one who told me I was just seeing things because I couldn’t handle Jack’s loss,” Gabriel growled, and then sighed, when Angela looked at him guiltily. “I’m sorry, that was mean. I was- … I _am_ emotionally compromised, I know that. You were right to tell me so at the time.”

She didn’t reply, keeping her hands folded in her lap and her eyes averted. It was clear that having told Gabriel to ignore his suspicions weighed heavily on her mind, and his comment didn’t help – but there was very little he could do about that. And Gabriel wasn’t known as a mean bastard for no reason. He just didn’t have the skill to comfort and console other people. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he was an alpha, instead of a beta that could erase built up focus, or an omega who could empathize on an emotional level.

So instead, he could only helplessly pat Angela’s shoulder, and leave her to deal with her guilt on her own.

*

In front of his office, Veronika greeted him with a disapproving frown. He clearly wasn’t in his office often – or long – enough to appease her dutiful sensibilities.

“You have a missed call from Secretary Ólafsdóttir. I told her you would call back as soon as possible.”

“Yes, yes.”

He breezed past his disgruntled PA, and really, what could Ólafsdóttir possibly already want again? He just spoke to her in a conference call with other UN representatives two days ago, right before the anniversary gala, to talk about the long-term plans for Overwatch and the direction they wanted to take. No, Ólafsdóttir wasn’t important right now.

He eagerly logged into his terminal – with a good, secure password; not some weak shit like _charlotte_ – and dismissed the blinking alert Veronika must have sent him about calling Ólafsdóttir. There was an archiving program that he had to log in again, this time with about ten passwords, keys and even a rudimentary iris scan, in order to get access to the underbelly of Overwatch records. This is where they digitally stored all the information either too old, too sensitive, or too personal for the common data archives. Including former agents’ terminal profiles.

These were protected on the one hand through the use of code. If he wanted to, say, access the profile of Agent Filipov, who worked with them under a temporary contract, he wouldn’t be able to find it, because the terminal didn’t bear his name, only his code.

What a good thing that Gabriel knew exactly which string of numbers to look for.

0076-01-1 was already suspiciously buried in a sub-folder reserved for high-ranking veteran officers. In Overwatch, there wasn’t much of a brass, only the respective Commanders of Overwatch and Blackwatch, and possibly their Lieutenants. Which meant there really was only one person this profile could belong to, and that was Jack Morrison.

He wasn’t interested in the log data the file had stored – like where and when Jack logged into his terminal. What he wanted to, and was told to look for, were the files accessed by him. The list as endless, of course, and Gabriel wondered how far back he should look, but he guessed it was best to just start at the top; which meant, starting with the last file Jack ever accessed.

Curiously enough, it was an image file. Gabriel didn’t have any problem opening it, as it didn’t seem to be confidential at all, and it made him wonder why Jack would even have something like that. But then he looked more closely, and he felt his breath catch in his throat.

He vaguely remembered seeing that picture, still opened in a small window, on Jack’s computer when he went to clear out his office. There was a subtle, yet clearly visible symbol in the bottom right corner that Gabriel immediately recognized as the Viskhar Corporation logo. The picture itself showed a building, from quite a distance, and that in itself made little sense. Except for the fact that Gabriel recognized that particular house. It was the Morrison farmhouse, the place Jack and Charlotte grew up in. Some details looked different than Gabriel remembered, though it had been a few years since he last saw it, which in turn indicated that the image was probably fairly recent.

It still didn’t explain why Jack would access that image, or why it was on Overwatch servers in the first place.

The next entry was two medical files, strangely enough compiled into one single document. Even stranger, it was the medical file of Jack’s mother, alongside Gabriel’s own medical history. Mrs. Morrison’s document was obviously older, as it dated from before her terrible sickness. Gabriel’s was up-to-date, or it had been, when Jack accessed it. Both of them looked like scans, and had strange, handwritten annotations in certain places, but Mrs. Morrison’s was gibberish to Gabriel. He could recognize most of the things detailed in his own, all the injuries he sustained and got treated for. But there was also a section apparently reserved to genetic monitoring, that had annotations pertaining the SEP and its after- and side-effects, as well as an encircled phrase: _genetic predisposition for Parkinson’s found, active triggers in place_.

“What the fuck?” he muttered, before he could help himself. Genetic predisposition? _Triggers_? What was going on? Why was he never told, if he really could suffer from Parkinson’s, sometime in the – possibly quite near – future? It wasn’t such a terrible sickness anymore, as there were fairly successful treatments that modern medicine came up with. It would still be fatal for an active agent, much less the Strike Commander of Overwatch, to fall so ill. Being diagnosed would be the deathblow for his whole career.

Not wanting to dwell on this possibility for too long, he moved on to the third entry; he could already see that this was going to take ages to sift through on his own, if everything was this personal, and rich in information. In the corner of his screen, an alert popped up – from Veronika, another reminder to call Secretary Ólafsdóttir. He clicked it away without a second thought, and moved on to the next file.

Said third entry was a text document, a transcript, to be precise. It was dated from roughly a year ago, and consisted of dialogue between two interlocutors, called A and B respectively. He started to read the first few turns of speech, when he felt an eerie sense of déjà-vu.

He remembered this conversation. He was one of the interlocutors. And Jack was the other. This was a transcript of a _private_ conversation between him and Jack.

It was one of Jack’s rare, weird ruts that weren’t really ruts, but a strange mixture between the typical symptoms and those of a heat. Those didn’t have to end in sex, but for them it was a kind of no-brainer. Gabriel liked to take care of Jack when he was in rut, and Jack loved the attention he got, as well as the pleasure he could give Gabriel in return.

That day, though, Jack seemed uncharacteristically subdued, even going so far as to turn his back on Gabriel as they lay in bed after an honestly mind-numbingly good bout of sex – a snub, if he’d ever seen one. Not that Gabriel was much of a cuddler, but _Jack_ was.

“Everything alright?” he asked, perhaps a bit stilted, because it was never Gabriel asking Jack that question.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” came the curt reply, and before Gabriel could put an awkward arm around Jack, he slid off the bed, haphazardly picking up an oversized sweater off the floor. They usually were pretty unabashed about nudity around each other – they’d both seen much more of each other in any sexual and non-sexual context than even their doctors probably would – so it was quite unusual for Jack to immediately get dressed after sex. Especially when he was in rut-heat. Because for an alpha-omega switch it meant that his body was going to focus on one person only, and Jack usually zeroed in on Gabriel’s emotional and physical needs. Sometimes this manifested in Jack cooking and feeding Gabriel all day long; sometimes it meant he wanted to ride Gabriel into the mattress. Both were totally fine by him.

Jack shuffled to the finnicky espresso machine that always worked for Jack, while it never worked for Gabriel, and coaxed it into giving him some strong brew, drip by drip. Which was another flag raised in Gabriel’s mind, as it should literally be impossible for Jack not to pour some coffee for Gabriel as well. Because he was Jack’s focus, right? But as he waited for the machine to finish coughing and groaning to produce the desired, caffeinated beverage, Jack turned around, hips cocked, a serious expression on his face.

“Gabe,” he said, and then paused with his lips pursed.

“Jackie?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then the machine beeped, signaling that it had successfully done its job. Jack knocked back the espresso like it was a shot of vodka, and then went back to frowning.

“If you were presented with an impossible choice. What would you do?” he asked.

“Well, I guess that depends on what kind of impossible choice it is,” Gabriel replied, confused.

“How about …” Jack stopped again, rubbing his chin in thought. “Something like … Shooting me in the head, or blowing up the Zürich HQ. Either, or. No other choice, just- … And you can’t stall for too long. What would you do?”

Stunned, Gabriel finally sat up properly, and busied his hands with draping the sheets over his legs.

“Shit, Jackie, that’s no question. I’d blow this shit to hell if I had to.”

“Okay, no, you have to say that because I’m the one asking. What if it were someone else, like … Ana, or McCree. You like the kid, right?”

“Well, I don’t know, he can be pretty annoying,” Gabriel tried to joke, but as soon as he saw Jack’s sour expression, he backpedaled, trying to match his seriousness. “I don’t know, honestly. If you, or Ana, or McCree, or Liao, or Angela, or Reinhard, or Torb, or … if it meant blowing up all of them alongside the HQ? It’d be a really hard decision.” When Jack remained quiet for too long, he added: “Jackie, why are you asking me this?”

“It’s nothing,” came the answer, too quickly to be truthful.

“Jack.”

“Okay, so it’s not nothing, but you can’t help me either. You wouldn’t understand.”

Gabriel, now angry instead of worried, crossed his arms and met Jack’s gaze head on.

“If you don’t want to talk about it, then a: don’t bring it up; and b: don’t insult my intelligence.”

“Shit, Gabriel, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?”

Jack sighed and ran both hands through his hair – an oddly expressive gesture for him, and another signpost that something was eating him up inside. Everything about him was unusual that day.

“You’re right, I shouldn’t have brought it up. It’s something I have to figure out myself, alright?” he groaned.

“That’s fine by me.”

“Can I come back to bed now?”

“Geez, Jackie, what do you think,” he snapped back, but when Jack gave him a betrayed look, he uncrossed his arms and patted the mattress next to him. “Let’s get those cuddles out of your system, alright?”

And that was the entire conversation, recorded and transcribed in the short text document in front of him, almost a year later. It raised several concerns, not the least of which was that there must have either been a recording device somewhere in Jack’s private rooms, or someone was actively listening in. And if they – who, that was the question – recorded or heard this conversation, what else did they listen to? Were there other tapped rooms, maybe even Gabriel’s own, his office, or some of the communal rooms? Reading the transcript now also put Jack’s nervous behavior and his cryptic statement in a completely different light. Not a good light, though.

Assuming there really was more to his death than a mere accident – did this imply that Jack somehow knew? That he was aware someone was targeting him, trying to get him out of the picture? Did he allow his own assassination, out of some fucked up sense of, what, martyrdom? To save Overwatch? To sacrifice the one for the good of the many?

All these documents, put together, only raised more questions while answering none. There was not a single common denominator, except for Jack, and Jack was dead. Sombra might know more, too, but there was no way he could trust her, and trying to contact her would likely be futile.

However, the door slammed open with a loud bang, the moment he decided to move on to the next file. A string of agents filed into Gabriel’s office, one by one, dressed all in blacks and greys, weapons at the ready. He didn’t doubt that they were live, and the men and women wielding them were more than willing to use them – but he stood from his chair and reached for his sidearm anyway. He proceeded to daringly pointed it at the woman striding towards him without so much as a bat of the eye.

“Commander Reyes,” said Secretary Ólafsdóttir, cool as you please.

“Ma’am,” he growled. He kept his gun pointed at the small patch of skin directly between her eyebrows, and his eyes trained on hers. They were a cold, almost colorless green, and her long, blonde hair fell elegantly onto her slim shoulders, that were covered in the severe cloth of a women’s suit.

They continued to fight a battle of “who blinks first”, until Ólafsdóttir raised a hand, and the _Blackwatch operatives_ reluctantly lowered their guns. Gabriel kept his up unwaveringly. A quick sweep over the faces and bearings told Gabriel that he only knew about half of them personally – the others probably crossed his desk in the form of a personnel file. Probably. But they were all Blackwatch. If nothing else, the skull and sword logo told him everything.

Had Gérard betrayed him? Did he get a taste of the power, and now wanted more, so he made deal with the UN? At least Gabriel could tell that McCree wasn’t with this kill squad. Judging by their choice of gear and stances, most of the agents present were either hired guns or were fished out of some supermax or another. Not good odds, even with Gabriel’s skill-set, training, and enhancements.

“I was always against promoting you,” Ólafsdóttir finally said. “Even the first time round, I was against giving you command of Overwatch. Though you did win us the Omnic War, I don’t believe you are suited for the kind of … delicate work that a post-war world needs. Jack Morrison was the far superior choice, even if he, too, proved to have … certain difficulties adjusting to the kind of mentality being Strike Commander demands. But we got through to him in the end.”

“What, by killing him?” Gabriel ground out between his teeth. With every word coming out of Ólafsdóttir’s mouth the longing to just pull the trigger increased tenfold. He never liked her; he also never really disliked her. But she was making it really hard right then not to.

“Oh no, nothing so drastic. His death really was just a … fortunate accident.” She smiled at her own wordplay, a smile that only grew when Gabriel channeled some of his fury into a roar that sent some of the weaker-minded agents reeling.

“If you’re here to kill me, then just do it – or I will shoot you first,” he snarled, adjusting his grip on the gun in his hands.

“I’m not here to kill you, Commander. I’m here to pressure you into doing what I want.”

“You don’t have any leverage over me, _Secretary_.”

“Oh, don’t I?”

She reached into her pocket, and Gabriel automatically twitched to aim at her hand, which in return made some of the agents surrounding him pull up their weapons again.

“Easy,” Ólafsdóttir chuckled. “It’s just a holopad. Well, I say ‘just’. This holopad in fact has the power to bend even someone as strong-willed and stubborn as you to their knees.”

She held it out in front of her, showing him an enlarged image. At first, he couldn’t comprehend it, couldn’t connect what he was seeing to Ólafsdóttir’s words. When it finally clicked, he let out another roar and tackled the agent next to him. Within a split second the man was disarmed and pulled up against Gabriel’s front as a meat shield, Gabriel’s gun pressed under his chin.

“You leave Isabel the fuck alone, Ólafsdóttir! Or I swear to God, I’ll kill this man.”

But Ólafsdóttir only tutted, shaking her head.

“I don’t care about this chunk of meat. I can get more like him. But who I would care about is your sister – the mother of your darling nephew. What was his name, Angel?”

“ _Ángel_ ,” Gabriel gasped out, tightening his grip on the agent struggling in his grip.

“That’s right. If you don’t cooperate, I can let them have a truly unfortunate accident. A truck might overrun them. Or maybe I will have them slaughtered brutally, so that the images will be splashed all across every newsreel and all the front pages, and you won’t be able to escape them. Maybe I’ll let the father watch as we put down his wife and child. Is that what you want, Gabriel?”

With a strangled scream he tossed the agent away from himself, sending him crashing to the floor with a kick to the back of his knees. Then he let his own gun clatter to the ground in total surrender.

“What,” he gasped, feeling all energy drain from his body, “do you want.”

Ólafsdóttir pursed her lips in thought, apparently content to leave him in suspension. Then, she raised a hand and pointed at the agent struggling to get back on his feet. To her left and right, three operatives each stepped forward, aimed, and shot. The agent came to land on his back, never to get up again.

“What I want, Commander, is your cooperation. Your unquestioned loyalty.” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her step closer to him, uncaring about the blood and brain matter staining her shoes. “If I tell you to jump, you don’t ask how high, you just jump. Or I’ll have your family killed. Or I might have your little protégé, the cowboy, fuck up his next assignment, which will leave him in pieces. Or I might have someone do something to that sweet little girl, Fareeha.

“Is that understood, Commander?”

“Yes,” he choked out, eyes still trained on the dead Blackwatch agent’s ruined face, barely more than a heap of meat and bones. He couldn’t help but see Isabel in his place, or Ernesto, or McCree, or Ana, or Fareeha, or Angela, or- … The list was endless.

“And please be aware that we are monitoring all of your activities closely. Do not interfere with our observation, or the previously mentioned … penalties will be put into action. No more snooping in the archives either, please.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And don’t tell anyone about this, or you know what will happen. For all intents and purposes, you gave me the perfect alibi.” She gave a cold, dry laugh. “One of your Blackwatch agents went rogue, trying to assassinate you. Me and my escort arrived just in time to save your life. That’s what happened here.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The acknowledgement was echoed by the other Blackwatch agents, and she nodded, satisfied.

“Good. Very well. I’ll tell your secretary to send a cleanup crew.”

And then she just left, the Blackwatch operatives following after her like mindless drones. Gabriel turned his back on the dead agent and the puddle of blood that was spreading unhindered on the floor. A couple of hand movements later, there was no trace of the list of document he was viewing just a few minutes ago, an age ago, in a time more innocent and less … whatever this was.

He heard the door open again, but didn’t turn around to acknowledge what was undoubtedly the poor cleaning crew. He kept staring out of the ceiling-high windows, focusing on the silver glint of light on the water of Lake Zürich. When soft steps approached him, his eyes refocused to watch the reflection in the glass.

“I brought you some chamomile tea, Commander,” Veronika said softly, holding out a steaming mug.

“That’s very kind of you, but I don’t- …” He stopped, feeling his throat close up.

“I’m very sorry about what happened. It’s just lucky that Secretary Ólafsdóttir arrived in time with her escort.”

Gabriel couldn’t help the choked noise escaping him, or the balled fist connecting helplessly with the bulletproof glass. It felt very cool against his knuckles, crisp and smooth.

“I already asked Commander Lacroix to start an internal investigation – how this man was ever cleared to join Blackwatch, and most importantly, how he got access to your office.”

 _You let him in through the door, alongside that snake, Ólafsdóttir_ , he couldn’t, but wanted to say.

“Gabriel!”

He sighed, and thankfully Veronika quietly stepped aside – though he saw her put the mug of tea on his desk – to make room for Ana. She immediately checked his body for wounds, and cradled his face in her rough hands, searching his eyes.

“I don’t need you to mother-hen me,” he protested weakly, but she relentlessly dragged his head to her height until his nose was buried in the soft, blue material of her coat.

“You just were the target of a thankfully failed assassination – of course I’m going to mother-hen you,” she chided. “And for the record, if the bastard weren’t already dead, I’d be killing him right now with my bare hands.”

“Thank God you don’t have to, then, or you’d have to deal with bloodstains on your clothes,” he tried to joke, but his tone fell miles short of light-hearted.

“Come on, let’s get you out of here. Why don’t you join us, I was just helping Fareeha with her math homework. They’ve moved on to fractions, now.”

“That sounds … nice.”

As she carefully led him out of the office, past the frantic worker bees trying to mop up all the gore spread on the floor, he allowed himself to tune out Ana’s mindless chatter. She was just trying to calm him down. Everyone was going to assume that he was in shock because of the failed assassination attempt. Because one of his own men pulled a gun on him. They’d never guess that he just got pressured into compliance with the plans of a possibly corrupt UN Secretary. That he just had to listen to someone with the power to make it possible threaten his family, friends, everyone he loved and cared about.

He silently watched and listened to Ana and Fareeha, as they puzzled over the math homework. Fareeha was smart, though, and math was one of her strengths – she didn’t need to fully concentrate on fractions, numerators and denominators. Instead, he could feel her shrewd gaze hone in on the adults’ body language. She didn’t say anything, but the moment she was done with schoolwork, she climbed onto his lap and held him tight. It was years since she was actually small enough to tuck under his chin, but her small frame and the spicy scent of her shampoo was just familiar enough to break the numbness that had spread through his body and mind.

He wasn’t proud of breaking down, even silently, in front of a young girl that he loved like a second little sister, or a niece, or a daughter. He was supposed to be her semi-parental, authoritative figure; he should be the one to console and support her, not the other way around.

But it just felt so good to finally release some of the tension that had wound itself around his throat like a noose. Because there was nothing he could do. Resistance was futile, and all was lost. Risked everything, lost it all. Tried hard, and failed.

Even more than the possible consequences if he were not to cooperate to Ólafsdóttir’s satisfaction, however, was the thought of what he would have to do in the name of Overwatch to keep everyone safe. He had so much influence over the lives of people all over the world, and so much potential for destruction. Blackwatch had been bad enough; instead of using it to pave the way for Overwatch, peace and unity, they were increasingly employed to further the selfish goals of nations, companies and capitalism. But Blackwatch was off the books, underground, secret and small. With Overwatch as their puppet, what horrors could they achieve?

And secretly, a very quiet voice asked whether he had been too blind to see the fact that Jack was just as much a prisoner of politics and blackmail as Gabriel now was. The same little voice almost welcomed the fact that Jack escaped this nightmare in death.

*

“There is disquiet in your soul.”

Gabriel nearly laughed, because it was so ridiculous, but he kept the sound from escaping his treacherous mouth in the last possible second. He was sitting in a plush room at the Nepalese embassy in Italy, and across from him sat the prim, tranquil form of the Omnic monk Tekhartha Mondatta, the leader of the Shambali monks. The Omnic’s words rang true, and Gabriel wasn’t surprised that it picked up on his mood.

“I believe we are not here to discuss my emotional state, but rather your plans. The Shambali have emerged from their self-imposed exile in the Himalayas, and caused quite a stir by claiming that Omnics have souls,” Gabriel deflected.

“Interesting,” said Mondatta, touching a hand to his faceplate. “You fly as straight and true as an arrow. But yes, that is the conclusions that we – that is, my brothers and sisters, and myself – have reached after long contemplation.”

“You do realize, that this might also have negative repercussions?”

“For you?” countered the Omnic, and if Gabriel wasn’t mistaken, there was a distinctly amused tone to its humming voice. “All jest aside, we have meditated on this as well. Rest assured, the publication of our conclusion was not made impulsively. In the end, we merely yielded to the pressure of revelation and enlightenment.”

Gabriel chewed on his bottom lip, contemplating the Omnic sitting so demurely on the opposite side of a low table laden with tea and biscuits. Why, he couldn’t fathom, as Omnics didn’t eat.

Not too many years ago, Gabriel wouldn’t even have thought about crushing this Omnic to metal dust and scrap – even the mere glint of metal and the glow of their sensors meant certain death, if he missed the first shot. Under the control of the god programs, every Omnic produced in the rogue omniums became a perfect death machine, not only capable of killing humans with the raw efficiency homo sapiens gifted them, but they also felt neither remorse nor were they to be reasoned with. Whoever shot first survived, and that was all it was. Survival of the fastest.

Never during those years going to bed every night thanking the Lord for another day on His Earth, would Gabriel have thought that he would one day sit with an Omnic, drink tea, and talk philosophy. But then, Tekhartha Mondatta neither looked nor acted anything like the Omnics that Gabriel faced during the Omnic Crisis. The war that very nearly ended humanity as they knew it.

“What are your thoughts on Overwatch?” Gabriel asked after a few long moments of silence, during which Mondatta was apparently content to sit and wait.

The Omnic tilted its head like a curious bird, and though it didn’t have eyes, it certainly felt like it was staring at Gabriel.

“A global peacekeeping initiative, founded, funded and controlled by the United Nations,” it finally said, folding its hands in its lap. “Your intentions are noble; the means and resources at your disposal perhaps … less so.”

This time, Gabriel allowed himself a wry chuckle.

“That seems to be the price one has to pay in order to work with politicians. Does that mean the Shambali monks will wish to remain independent?”

“Yes. One should not limit oneself to the boundaries and restrictions set by the world that we live in – true harmony is beyond that.” Mondatta spread its arms and tilted its head back. “The Iris simply is.”

Their conversation continued in a similar vein for almost two more hours. Gabriel might have enjoyed listening to the Omnic’s vague, fortune-cookie wisdom, if not for the fact that it was an Omnic, and Gabriel had to very carefully choose his words or someone, somewhere might point a gun at Isabel. Especially whenever Mondatta came back to the “darkness” shrouding Gabriel’s soul, he had to bite his tongue.

“Though I heard about your predecessor, a close friend of yours, passing into the Iris. Time is an illusion, yet a mere half a year is not enough to heal wounds such as those of loss. Often we see no reason why the Iris calls for some souls, yet not for others. But such are the ways of the universe: unknowable.”

But Gabriel knew that this wasn’t true. He knew why Jack died; whose fault it was; who tore him away from his side. It was _Overwatch_. The organization that took years and years from them, demanded a steep price in blood and sweat and suffering for the mere promise of doing good, achieving peace and to battle evil in the world. And how did Overwatch thank its golden poster boy, Jack Morrison? All their pain and battles for naught.

But he couldn’t say that, so he hummed and nodded his head in a non-committal gesture.

Mondatta apparently saw something in Gabriel that it liked nonetheless. When they finally parted, it was because Gabriel had to join his team that was waiting him at their transport that would carry them into the warzone in the south of Mali, near its capital city Bamako.

“May the universe look kindly upon you and your companions,” Mondatta told him and boldly took one of Gabriel’s hands in its cool, metallic ones. “Take this, as a token of my appreciation. You have proven yourself to be a very interesting conversation partner. So that, one day, we may meet again.”

Stunned, Gabriel looked at the small, intricately carved metal orb now resting in his palm. It seemed to emit a faint glow, and it vibrated softly against his skin, almost tickling him a little bit.

“Thank you,” he told the Omnic, truthfully. “What is it?”

“A mere token, nothing of true value.”

He raised an eyebrow, studying the gently shining dots on the Omnic’s faceplate.

“Why do I have the impression that this statement is not entirely honest?”

“Oh, you must be mistaken,” chuckled Mondatta, and raised its hand in a quite elegant gesture of goodbye. “Farewell, friend.”

On the trip to Mali, Gabriel leaned into the harness keeping him firmly in his seat of the transport, eyes transfixed on the little orb cradled in his palm. There was something peaceful, nearly hypnotic about its light, and the gentle humming of its warm surface against his calloused skin. Next to him, Reinhardt gave it a curious glance or fifty, but never said anything, opting to rather pester Angela sitting on Gabriel’s other side by simply speaking over his head. The young doctor was outfitted in her Valkyrie swift response suit and the Caduceus staff clamped between her knees, and he could feel her eyes, too, resting heavily on the little Omnic orb.

But simply looking at it didn’t reveal its secrets, so when Lena cheerfully announced their approach at the local military airport in Bamako, he pocketed the metal ball and switched into his commanding persona.

“Alright, listen here, folks- …”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **WARNINGS** for substance (alcohol) abuse, and a short mention of child abuse, but it's only a short sentence WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS in case you want to avoid it. Also, there's implied sexual content, graphic violence/murder, and psychological manipulation/blackmail. This sounds really bad, omg, I'm sorry.
> 
> Tell me what you thought about this chapter in the comments, I love hearing from you guys! <3
> 
>  **Headcanons 'n stuff:**  
>  1\. Surprise Sombra! I took her character design from the [Sombra Origin Story](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHHjdKMH7_w) video, and I probably made her a bit too young? Idk. Generally, though, I'm going with the assumption that Jack's death without the accompanying fall of Overwatch accelerated a lot of the events that, in canon, happened some years later.  
> 2\. Also, at this stage, Athena has not yet been implemented as the Overwatch-wide AI, the superiors don't want that. See: Omnic Crisis and the God programs. They're not gonna put an AI in charge. So she's just a localized AI with a personality, with little actual power or authority.  
> 3\. I'm using "it" for Mondatta, not because of something that I think, but that's rather an influence of Gabriel's voice creeping in. Personally, I'd refer to Omnics like Mondatta and Zenyatta as "he", and there is even a voice line from Zenyatta that says "my brothers and sisters", so there are definitely also female-identifying Omnics. But Gabriel fought in the Omnic War, and he's ... not anti-Omnic racist, but he's definitely ... cautious in his stance? Idk, that's all I wanted to express with that.  
> 4\. I'm starting to realize that there is so much tidbid background stuff that I'll never be able to tell anyone, because it's spoilery or irrelevant. And no one is ever going to notice all of them. I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you have theories or thing that some small information links up with another hint, you are very welcome to share those with me in a comment or on tumblr ([llaevateinn](http://llaevateinn.tumblr.com/ask)), as an ask! I might even be able to confirm or deny some stuff. Because there is nothing left to chance in this thing, alright?  
> Happy hunting :)


	4. You can't take back the damage you've done

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was honestly the hardest chapter to write, everything hinges on this one. I have never been more insecure about a thing before. Also, it looks like it's taking longer and longer with every update, argh. I'm telling myself I wanted to avoid posting during R76 week (and holy shit, was it awesome), but honestly, I rewrote this chapter like 3 times. I really want to finish this before my semester starts again, though.
> 
> Remember to keep your disbelief in suspense about anything regarding actual combat etc. or policework. I know nothing. But no special warnings, y'all saw it coming from miles away.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> PS: Chapter title is from the song "Man or a Monster" by Sam Tinnesz feat. Zayde Wølf.

Bamako was supposed to be a simple escort mission. The UN was sending relief aid to civilians caught in a war between three fronts. Resistance fighters, the military, and a newly formed terrorist group that didn’t even have a name yet, it was so young. A ceasefire of 24 hours was negotiated, during which Overwatch was supposed to go in and distribute unperishable foodstuffs, water purification tablets, medical supplies and other sorely needed items.

Though they were all armed and ready, they didn’t expect the ambush by the unnamed terrorist group before they even reached the drop zone. The terrorists hit them hard and fast, killing and wounding at least half of their blue helmet support troops before anyone was on their feet. And with the moment of surprise on their side, most of Gabriel’s defense strategies were out the window. However, attack was always a good defense.

“Rally to the front of the convoy – Reinhardt, shield up, give Ana and the blue helmets cover. Mercy, Kimiko, you stay with them. Tracer, we’re going to cause some disturbance. Falcon formation,” he barked into his comms. An echo of “yessirs” answered him.

Tracer zipped ahead with a joyful whoop, and Gabriel climbed onto the roof of their vehicle, loading his shotguns as he went. Eight shots. Eight kills. He jumped into the fray, black-clad figures falling before him like trees before a storm. Tracer swooped in to cover him as he reloaded, and halfway through the next wave of assault he felt the prickly, numbing feeling of his enhancements kicking in full force. Colors blared, contrasting against the black of the terrorists’ armor, and he roared between shots, loud enough to distract some of them long enough for Tracer to come back in and finish them off.

His focus zeroed in on details as his body went through the fluid motions of two decades of active combat experience, details that he otherwise would have missed. Like the build of the face masks the terrorists were wearing, or the slide of rough fabric against the smooth blue metal of Gabriel’s recoil dampeners. Out of the corner of his eye he noticed something like a logo on the shoulder of one of the men he mowed down – it looked like the Aries sign, a crooked kind of Y shape, silver on black. As he knocked another man’s teeth out with the butt of his shotgun, he filed the logo in his memory to remember later.

He was reloading for the third time, Tracer coming in to cover him, when suddenly, literally from left field, a spray of suppressing fire rained down on them. Tracer panicked, recalling herself away to where she started out, leaving Gabriel to simply duck and wait out whoever joined the party, wait until they had to reload. But not even a second later, when the familiar _rat-tat-tat-tat_ of a pulse rifle was interrupted due to the clip being empty, Gabriel realized that not a single shot had connected with his body. Either they were a terrible shot, or- …

He got back to his feet, shotguns at the ready, but there were only three men left standing, close enough for Gabriel to blow their brains out in less time than he needed to blink.

“Tracer,” he barked into the comms. “Regroup with the others, I’ll handle cleanup.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“Just go, Tracer.”

“Aye,” came her hesitant agreement, and a blue streak of light told Gabriel that she really followed his command.

He bent down to inspect the terrorists’ uniforms a bit closer, especially the Aries sign. He tore one from the shoulder of one of the corpses and pocketed it, but what really struck him about all of this was how well equipped they were. Maybe not particularly disciplined, if the way some had turned their backs on Gabriel was any indication, but their gear could certainly hold a candle to what Overwatch considered its standard. There were a couple of biotic chest plates, lots of pulse guns, even some tactical visors. And of course the masks. Were they just there to conceal their identity, or did they have some other function that Gabriel couldn’t determine?

“Should I be flattered that you followed me here all the way from São Paulo?” he called out, while he was trying to remove one mostly intact looking mask.

Behind him, a soft thud told him that their mysterious friend must have dropped down from a perch. Probably a good angle for a mid-range weapon like a pulse rifle.

When no answer came, Gabriel gave up on tugging on some poor guy’s face, and turned around.

“At least tell me your name,” he said, eyeing the other man. It _was_ the assailant from São Paulo, no question about that. Same black tactical gear, balaclava, and red-tinted goggles. Though perhaps they were something else, something similar to the masks with equally red eyepieces. But this time the man also carried a large pulse rifle, and wore additional armor around his shoulders, neck and chin. Probably to deal with the recoil.

“ _Ifrit_ ,” came the metallic rasp of a mechanically altered voice. Go figure. A guy as paranoid as this one just had to go all Batman on Gabriel.

“Alright. Demon, huh? Not a very flattering name for someone who probably just saved our asses.”

“It’s what the locals call me.”

“So, I originally thought you were from São Paulo – you seemed to know the area pretty well.” Gabriel waited a few moments, until Ifrit shifted on his feet and hefted his rifle onto one shoulder. “Why change locations now, and why Bamako?”

“I go where I’m needed.”

Gabriel waited for Ifrit to elaborate, but of course nothing else came.

“But you work with Sombra? Are you, uh, _Jean-Jacques Dechamps,_ by any chance?”

That, finally, elicited a positive response, even if it was a weirdly distorted chuckle.

“Sombra owes me fifty bucks. She didn’t think you’d find out.”

“It’s just the two of you, then.”

Ifrit didn’t acknowledge that last statement, but nervously shifted on his feet again, looking left and right, pulse rifle fitting comfortably into his gloved hands.

“I have to go,” he said, seemingly reluctantly turning around.

“Wait,” Gabriel called after him. “What do you know about these terrorists? You’re here because of them, right? And what do you know about Ólafsdóttir?”

Ifrit didn’t answer, backing away further and further, but Gabriel still saw his flinch at the UN Secretary’s name. But before Gabriel could say anything else, blown up dust enveloped Ifrit’s dark silhouette, and an until that moment completely camouflaged jump jet descended up on them with roaring engines. The bay doors slid open for Ifrit to climb in, and pressed against the cockpit windows was the face of a girl.

“ _Hola,_ Gabriel,” she mouthed cheekily, saluting with one hand. And then, without disrupting eye contact, flipped off someone standing behind her. As the plane strained against gravity to transport Sombra and Ifrit to who-knew-where, she visibly laughed.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” he shouted after the ship, but soon enough its bulky shape sizzled, until nothing but wisps of dust could be seen, leaving him alone with the corpses and aid relief goods.

Gabriel stood atop the convoy nearly an hour later, strip of cloth with the Aries logo on it in hand. Below and around him, the rest of the blue helmets were busy clearing the perimeter, preparing the caravan to continue its trip. There were still hungry, thirsty, homeless civilians that needed their help. They would have it by now, if not for this ambush by a nameless terrorist cell. Some got past Gabriel’s and Tracer’s aggressive defense, injuring Kimiko badly enough to warrant Mercy supercharging her Caduceus staff. These people were good; they were well trained, experienced, with good tactics and leadership, and even better gear. Some of them even had biotic canisters, like the ones Gabriel used, which explained why not every one of his shots actually killed one of these bastards. Which was why some got past him, why Kimiko got hurt.

If the past was any indication, where there were Sombra and Ifrit, there was something fishy going on. Gabriel was going to find out what exactly happened here today.

*

Though Gabriel used to have guitar classes, and Jack apparently spent years as part of a boy choir, neither of them were very musical. They left the drunk bellowing to Torbjörn, and the simple rhymes and even some half-hearted rapping to Reinhardt, the virtuoso percussions to Liao, and the melodious humming to Ana.

Gabriel was always content just leaning back and listening whenever someone decided to pack out. But Jack, he knew, had a hidden talent.

The first time Jack started whistling during training, nearly the entire base stopped to listen him whistle the intro to Billy Joel’s “The Stranger”. He didn’t even seem to know that he was doing it. When folding his shirts, when cleaning his gun, when waiting in line for breakfast, when they were marching. Always a jaunty tune at the ready, when someone prompted him, but when he wasn’t aware of it? The melodies that came to him then were usually more melancholic, but hauntingly beautiful. “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” seemed to be a personal favorite, neither too depressing or too lively. Sometimes he made up something of his own, though more often than not he copied some classic everyone knew.

It went so far that Gabriel started to use Jack’s whistling as code in the field in the early days of Overwatch. Even without sticking his fingers in his mouth to produce a more piercing sound – something neither Gabriel nor Jack ever figured out how that worked – his whistling carried surprisingly far, especially in the labyrinthian corridors of the omniums they had to take down.

“Moves Like Jagger” meant five minutes to detonation. “Pumped Up Kicks” was a preliminary call to prepare for evac. “Patience” meant that they were meeting no resistance, or the way was clearer than anticipated, and something was fishy. “Home” was the sign that the mission was a success. “Trinity: Titoli” signaled movement in the distance, a call to preparation, and “Twisted Nerve” was a warning for unforeseen resistance, usually squadrons of Bastions they weren’t prepared for. “Don’t Worry Be Happy” was their battle rally.

It was foolproof, because Omnics didn’t understand music, and whistling in particular seemed to baffle them. At least it did the Omnics that the omniums’ god programs were throwing at them.

Where his whistling came from, Jack couldn’t really explain. Apparently his mother taught him and Charlotte when they were young, alongside making gum bubbles. Sometimes they’d whistle when working in the field, but it never stuck with anyone else the way it did with Jack.

Nowadays, whenever Gabriel heard someone whistle, he couldn’t help but think about Jack. It happened more often that he really liked.

*

Gabriel looked at his reflection in the mirror, growling softly under his breath. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy, his lips dry and chapped. Additionally, his head pounded with a migraine, and his hands, resting on the sink, were slippery with sweat.

Damn it. His rut was early.

He thought he felt the first tendrils of hyper focus and elevated vital signs in Bamako, a mission they returned from just the night before, but he ignored it in favor of finishing the job. It went off without a hitch, they got home, and Gabriel’s actual work was supposed to start now. Writing up reports, meetings, debriefing his own agents and those that came back from other missions while they were away. But he couldn’t do that if he was decommissioned for an unscheduled rut.

Normally, those could be predicted to the day, lasted about three or four days, and were pretty manageable with some help to alleviate the worst symptoms, so that he didn’t necessarily need to stop working. With someone curbing his rut, he could still read and sign stuff, after all.

But he didn’t have any help, or no help that Gabriel was willing to accept. Plus, one could never tell what his body was going to focus on when there was no obvious outlet like an omega offering to take care of one’s haywire instincts. One memorable time, his genius brain decided that it really liked the pattern of the carpet in his hotel room, and he spent three days lying on his stomach, trying to count the dots. When he realized that there were dots hidden under the furniture, he started wrecking the place to get to those corners of the carpet that the furniture was standing on. Management wasn’t happy with him.

He sent a quick message to Gérard to cover for him, and to bring him the report of the internal investigation later. It had still been ongoing when they left for Bamako, and Gérard was currently busy remotely monitoring a capture and interrogation mission down under. His next message was to update Angela on his condition. Then he set up his desk in him room with all the necessary paperwork, and surrounded himself with things to focus on that weren’t dots on the carpet. Like incense, really loud jazz music, and a bag of sweets he kept in his room for this very reason. The candies were filled with some sour, fizzy filling. Focusing on that might not be so bad.

Halfway through writing the first report, the words started to blur in front of his face, and both the taste of the sweets and the smell of the incense started to make him nauseous. His nose was telling him there was something else, there had to be a better smell. Something like- …

Before he could finish the thought, he was already in front of his closet, rummaging through his stuff in search of something, something, something, not this, and not this either. What was he looking for?

 _This_.

Triumphantly, he held up an old sweater, literally crammed into the back corner of his closet, bunched up, wrinkled and its color probably faded, but … He pressed his nose to the fabric, and breathed in.

Oh shit. It smelled like Jack.

Horrified, he held it out in front of him, letting it unfurl. How the hell did Jack’s original Overwatch sweater get in Gabriel’s closet? Right, they drew names and exchanged them within the original six members, as a kind of lucky charm. If he remembered right, Jack got Ana’s, Liao got Gabriel’s, Reinhardt got Torbjörn’s, who got Liao’s, and Ana got Reinhardt’s. And consequently, Gabriel got Jack’s.

The next thing he knew, he was hunkered down in the far corner of his room, sweater clutched to his chest, and the roar coming out of his throat far louder than the knock that tore him back to reality.

“Reyes, I’m going to come in now,” sounded Gérard’s muffled voice.

His growl subsided at the non-threatening sight of the man, who let the door slide closed behind him and slid to the floor with a bundle of folders in his arms. The Frenchman smiled gently, mouth closed, and tried to tap a grounding rhythm on the backs of the files, but Gabriel lost interest in that almost immediately after he noticed it.

“Hello, Gabriel,” hummed Gérard, a cool and soothing presence on the periphery of Gabriel’s perception.

Deciding to ignore the omega, Gabriel lay down on his side, with the sweater bundled under his head like a makeshift pillow. That way he could continue to smell it, without having to bend himself into too uncomfortable a position.

“Gabriel.”

He growled, peering at the shoes visible through the crack under his bed. The boots shifted, until Gérard’s face appeared, still smiling mildly.

“I’m sorry, I know you’re in rut, but I need your attention for a little bit. This,” he pulled out one of the folders, actually a flat, hardlight tablet, and slid it across the floor in Gabriel’s direction, “is the report of the internal investigation. We didn’t find much, except for a large wire transfer to an offshore account.”

Gabriel snuffled, torn between wanting to ignore the nice omega and knowing his words were important. In the end, he reached out and pawed at the tablet clumsily with his sweaty fingers until he could look at it.

“There’s more, though.”

When the omega’s soothing voice didn’t continue, Gabriel growled and stuck his head under the bed to fix the man with a glare.

“Alright, alright,” he laughed, eyes crinkling. The eyes were blue, but pale, the wrong shade. As was the hair. Gabriel retreated again, rubbing his nose against the soft fabric of the sweater. “An hour ago I got a missive from the council, about two new missions, regarding a newly emerged, international terrorist cell, and a troublemaking thief respectively. They said you already approved and that I should act as your SIC and start with the planning and diversion of resources in preparation of the missions, but … You were gone until last night and have been in rut since this morning, so … you couldn’t have approved yet, yes?”

Gabriel rubbed at his eyes, gaining slightly more lucidity with every word coming out of Gérard’s mouth.

“What- …?” he managed to croak, and pointed at the papers pressed to Gérard’s chest.

“The terrorist cell is actually the one you encountered in Bamako,” Gérard continued. “No name known as of yet, but apparently they are international. We should stop them, before they become too big. Quite standard, though.”

“And the … the …?”

“The thief. Broke into the R&D department of Helix Security International’s seat in Cairo, stole some pretty experimental weapons and gear that they have been working on in conjunction with our own researchers. They don’t want the tech to hit the black market.”

“Cairo,” Gabriel muttered, pulling the dossier closer that Gérard slid in his direction. His eyes wouldn’t focus on the words, however, so he grunted and sent it skidding back.

“You want to know more? Alright. Um, identity unknown, base of operations unknown, motives unknown … The local media gave him a nickname, though: Ifrit. And there are a couple of blurry CCTV images, but nothing much. The theft happened three days ago, and he stole pistols, a pulse rifle with experimental rocket function, lots of nanobiotic tech, armor … Pretty much anything a mercenary would need or want.”

Ifrit. _Ifrit_.

That didn’t add up. Or maybe it did, but Gabriel’s brain was too scrambled by his rut to make the proper connections. Wasn’t Ifrit the combat operative working with Sombra? The one with the Batman voice modulator and the black armor fetish. But he wasn’t a thief. Or a mercenary, for that matter. Or was he?

Gabriel groaned, pressing the heel of his hand into one temple to combat the oncoming migraine. His body clearly didn’t like him trying to divert his attention away from his rut focus. But there was something … something important, and it had something to do with either the terrorists in Bamako, or Ifrit, but which one was it.

“Aries,” he blurted out, scrambling to get up, but his head decided to split into two. He came back to an undefined amount of time later to Gérard’s soothing purring and a cool hand on his forehead.

“You said something,” Gérard hummed.

“Aries,” he repeated, crawling across his room to the chair where he threw last night’s uniform. In one of those pockets had to be the scrap of cloth with the Aries sign on it, but his damn hands were too weak and clumsy, getting even less coordinated and more sweaty by the second. Gérard gently pushed him away moments later, to rummage through the pockets himself.

“This?” he asked, holding up the piece of fabric.

“Yes. It was on the terrorists’ uniform. Run it- …” He stopped to ride out another wave of pain. “Have Liao run it through the database.”

“Very well. But you should rest now. Here.”

Stunned, Gabriel let Gérard push the sweater into his arms, logo and name blazed across the top. Overwatch, property of Jack Morrison. Embarrassed, he still couldn’t help but bury his nose in it.

“Anything else you need?” Gérard asked, not indicating that he’d seen what Gabriel’s focus was.

“Water and food in a few hours, I guess.”

“I’m sure Mercy will already have thought of that, but if not, I’ll have someone bring it to you.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem, Commander.”

Gabriel happily sunk back to the floor, head pillowed on Jack’s sweater, and descended into the blissful ignorance of rut-induced focus. His eyes were relaxed and rested on a glowing, gentle presence that he slowly started to recognize as the Omnic orb Mondatta had given to him. It must have fallen out of his pocket, when he or Gérard were looking for the Aries logo.

Clumsily reaching for it, he lost some of his restful trance, but as soon as he cradled the little metal ball to his chest, the peaceful feeling returned nearly tenfold. What a nice thing this was. He ran a thumb over the ridges in the metal, and blinked every now and then to keep his eyes from drying out completely, as he attempted to take in its soothing glow for as much time as possible. But in the end, he tucked it into the crook of his neck, and turned his face into the sweater’s soft surface. Yes, that was what he really needed.

After some time, someone knocked on the door and entered, despite his warning growl. Though deep in rut, he still recognized Angela, if not by her face, then by her voice and soothing presence. The tray she put on the floor and pushed towards him was more interesting to his senses – the smell of food in abundance.

“Remember to drink enough, as well,” said Angela, and Gabriel relented, emptying one of the bottles of isotonic fluids, though it left a fuzzy taste in his mouth from all the nutrients and additives in it.

As he continued to devour his meal, he let his mind rest on the rhythmic tapping of Angela’s nails on the floor. It helped to bring some clarity to his mind, so that he could multitask again.

“Everyone okay?” he mumbled with his mouth full of pasta.

“I already took care of Kimiko’s wounds,” Angela said. “She’s going to recover very quickly. Torb and Winston caused a bit of an … explosion in the lab this afternoon. Nothing bad, don’t worry. No one got hurt. Oh, and Jesse is scheduled to land in a few hours. Do you want to see him later or tomorrow?”

“Mmm …” Gabriel rubbed his forehead, trying to think.

“Tomorrow might be better.”

“Sure.”

He slumped down, careful to wipe his mouth before pressing his face into the sweater. Sleep sounded like a really good idea right now, to be honest. He was faintly aware of a last rhythmic tapping coming from Angela’s nails connecting with the floor, and then a gentle sigh, right before his body got covered with something warm and soft. All in all, it felt very much like an omega’s nest, all safe and comforting, especially with the fading smell of Jack permeating Gabriel’s nose.

Before he drifted off, he felt a faint vibration coming from the crook of his elbow, where the Omnic orb was nestled. He answered it with a drowsy growl, and then fell asleep.

*

Someone was whistling. Not the loud, sharp whistle people did to signal a dog, nothing like that. It was soft and melodious, a vaguely familiar tune in a very familiar pitch. His sleep- and rut-addled mind registered it distantly, but as it wasn’t a threat, he let it settle in his bones alongside the warm smells of home.

It was day four of Gabriel’s rut, almost twelve hours past the point when he should have started to come down from his hormonal frenzy. McCree had come and gone, enticing his tongue and nose with chili and a cloud of cigar smoke to ground him enough that they managed something of an informal debrief. Next came Reinhardt, though in the end Gabriel couldn’t resist his instinct to chase off the rival alpha. Winston was much better, non-threatening and unobtrusive. He even brought a portable version of Athena with him to read Gabriel some poetry. And some peanut butter for Gabriel to lick off his fingers hours later.

He was lying on the floor again, waking from a few hours of restless slumber, when the whistling started. The sound was accompanied by a cool gust of air, and the orb tucked securely under Jack’s sweater gave of a faint vibrating hum to match the melody. Gabriel added a small warbling noise to signal his contentment, and then moaned when the whistling stopped for a moment. It picked up again a few moments later, if a bit quieter.

There was something about that, though. The whistling. Blinking his eyes open, he wracked his brain for the name of the song. When it finally clicked, he suddenly found himself wide awake.

This particular, overly ornate version of “Over the Rainbow” was … used to be an all-time favorite of Jack’s. A private little way of showing off his skills, and revealing his nerdy side just a bit. He used to _love_ it. But only Gabriel knew that, as far as he was aware. So who the fuck was currently whistling it, in Gabriel’s room no less?

But the exceptional length that his rut had decided to take his body and mind hostage had exacted a high price not only on his mental, but also physical faculties. It took him nearly a full, embarrassing minute to gather himself up from the floor, by the time of which of course the whistling had stopped. His room was empty and dark, the late dusky light filtering through the windows that- …

Gabriel blinked and rubbed his crusty eyes. One of the windows was open.

Groggy, but rapidly feeling adrenaline flood his limbs, he stumbled towards the window, ignoring the way his shin smacked into the edge of his bed on his way there. Once he reached it, though, he stuck his head outside to take a couple of deep gulps of air, sorely needed freshness.

A glance downwards revealed not only a breakneck drop of five stories, but also the telltale flicker of camouflage. Dazed, he stared at the pink and purple blotch his unfocused eyes showed him, next to a taller, black blob.

“Hey, what the fuck?” he shouted. Probably not very smart, in any sense of the word.

Two sets of faces turned up to look at him, and _damn it_ , why did rut turn him into a useless hunk of flesh and bone that couldn’t get anything done without help; if this really was Sombra and Ifrit standing down there, this was a wasted opportunity, because as far as he could tell? Ifrit wasn’t wearing his damn mask and goggles for once. But no, of course Gabriel’s eyes had to go and become absolutely inoperable, the one time it would be important to actually be able to see something other than vague, blurry shapes.

“What the fuck?” he repeated, helpless as he had to watch them get into their camouflaged jet and fly away.

It was unfair, that’s what it was.

A bit angry, and a lot frustrated, Gabriel slammed his window shut and gathered the sweater off the floor. Maybe sleeping on the bed would get the world to make some more sense.

But having just watched an internationally sought thief, maybe vigilante, and his crazy kid sidekick depart in a high-tech transport, after very possibly infiltrating Overwatch HQ, Gabriel didn’t pay any mind to the blaring alarms that woke him up just as he was about to fall asleep again. Somebody must have finally noticed the intrusion, then.

He only started to worry, when McCree, of all people, barged into his room without announcing himself. That wasn’t worrisome, but the words coming out of his mouth were doubly so.

“Wake up, _jefe_ , holy shit, someone just broke into the Lacroix’ city apartment and abducted Amélie! What do we do, boss? Boss, are you awake?”

He was awake, but either his mind was playing games with him, or he just misheard.

“Repeat that for me,” he demanded, moving to get himself presentable again, while McCree recounted what happened.

“You know Gérard and Amélie have that nice little apartment downtown, studio, or whatever y’call that. Great view, secure neighborhood, all dandy. I saw Gérard before he left for home, said he ain’t seen his wife in a while, and was lookin’ forward to some, uh, alone-time. But then, ‘bout … ten minutes ago he comes a-runnin’, screamin’ and cryin’, bleedin’ from a head wound, sayin’ that Amélie got snatched by some people. Started makin’ no sense no more, harpin’ on about Virgo, or Libra, or some other zodiac sign- …”

“Aries,” Gabriel interjected, freezing in the midst of pulling on some proper pants.

“Yeah, that’s the one. You know somethin’ about that, boss?”

“I might,” he growled. “Congratulations, McCree, you just got promoted to be my temporary SIC. Gather a team of six, all stealth, infiltrator or assault agents that you know personally and trust with your life. Where’s Gérard at the moment?”

“Sick bay, with Mercy.”

“Good. I’ll go fetch them. Now, hurry.”

McCree immediately raced away on the nimble legs of youth, but Gabriel fought against the sluggishness that still held his limbs captive all the way from his chambers to Angela’s sick bay. His mind, too, stuttered and groaned under the strain, as he forced it into a cold start, from zero to one hundred in less than a second.

Amélie, taken. By the terrorists they encountered in Bamako, and started to investigate just a few days ago. This was a nightmare. Gérard was one of the few people in Blackwatch he still trusted – this constituted a massive blow, not just to Gérard as an individual, as a husband, an agent and Commander of Blackwatch, but to Gabriel as well, who relied on Gérard as his right-hand man. He needed more information. How did they find the Lacroix’ apartment and break into it? Why would they kidnap Amélie? Was there a ransom demand?

Once he had one of Angela’s assistants point him in the right direction, the room they were temporarily keeping Gérard in was painfully obvious to find. There was shouting happening in French and English, or a garbled mixture of the two, and the warbling threat of tears in the male voice, while the female one remained steady and sure. Both fell silent, the moment Gabriel barged in.

“What are you doing here,” Angela immediately said, visibly torn between fussing over him, and fussing over Gérard. “Aren’t you still in rut?”

Gabriel ignored her, in favor of making his stand in front of Gérard, who was sat miserably on an operating table, of all things. There were stitches crossing his left brow, a band-aid on his nose, bandages wrapped around his shoulder, and a light cast on his left wrist – but what truly made him look miserable were the helpless tears streaming down his face.

“Gérard, look at me,” Gabriel said, trying to sound as confident as possible. The omega’s eyes immediately latched onto him, and he allowed the man to put his hands on Gabriel’s elbows to steady himself. “We are going to find Amélie. We’ll bring her home, I promise that.”

“It was them, Gabriel,” Gérard sobbed, “the terrorists. I saw the sign, they didn’t even hide it. They took my Amélie.”

“I know, Gérard. You have to tell me everything you saw, anything you noticed. I promise you we will find them, and we’ll bring your wife home.”

He had to credit Gérard for his composure, for his recounting of the break-in, assault and subsequent kidnapping of his wife was not only thankfully coherent, but also full of pertinent details. Like the fact that the abductors must have had considerable skill to have entered their very well secured apartment without tripping any of the alarms or indeed alerting Gérard or Amélie to their presence before they attacked the couple during dinner. That it was agents of the same terrorist organization Gabriel encountered in Bamako was proven by the fact that they wore similar gear, with the identical Aries logo emblazoned silver on black. Gérard said that he fought, of course, but was subdued by the abductors due to their advantage in numbers.

“They gave Amélie something, put a syringe to her neck,” he explained, indicating the spot. “I was lying on the floor, barely conscious. And then … he came in through the window. Sent glass flying everywhere.”

“He? Who?”

“He matched the description from the second dossier I showed you … Do you remember, I told you about the thief that stole Helix Security technology?”

“Ifrit,” Gabriel breathed.

“I don’t know what happened exactly. But they have Amélie, and they might have taken him too. At least he wasn’t there anymore, when I managed to get up.”

Gabriel stepped back and rubbed his beard, distantly aware that Angela had returned to take care of Gérard’s wounds. If Ifrit had first showed up here, at the Zürich HQ, did he mean to warn Gabriel? Why would he try to prevent Amélie’s abduction, and where did he get the information that such an operation was taking place? And if they really captured him … Perhaps Sombra would help them locate the abductors.

YOU ARE BEING WATCHED, he thought. He’d have to be careful. Very, very careful.

“I’m going to talk to the team I’ve assembled, to discuss our first steps,” he said into the room, and left without waiting for confirmation that he’d been heard.

In the conference room where he had McCree set up their impromptu task force, he was greeted with a lot of familiar faces. Ana was the first to approach him, jaw set and eyes grim. McCree saluted him across the table, standing behind Kimiko’s chair. Next to her sat Genji Shimada, placid green glow of his visor directed unflinchingly at Gabriel. Leaning against the wall were Singh and Al-Farouk, eyeing Mirembe, who was pacing impatiently on the other side of the room.

“Commander?” said Ana, and looked him up and down. “What is going on?”

“Amélie was kidnapped. I debriefed Gérard on what happened, but we have to move quickly.” Gabriel moved towards the table, and let his gaze sweep once over every agent present. “The situation is as follows: the Lacroix’ were attacked in their home by unknown assailants, affiliated to a terrorist organization Blackwatch was tasked with dismantling. They injured Gérard, and took Amélie.”

He paused, both for dramatic effect, as well as to gauge the agents’ reactions. They looked at him stoically, and he moved on, without mentioning the interference from Ifrit.

“Kimiko, I need you to look into the Lacroix’ security system, how it was circumvented or disabled. Ana, you’re with her, cover her six. McCree, you’re with Singh and Genji, call sign Black-1, 2 and 3 respectively. Mirembe and Al-Farouk are with me, Strike-2, 3 and 1. Black, you’ll sweep the city, going in concentric circles out from the Lacroix’ apartment. Search any abandoned and public spaces for a place where they might keep someone hostage. Meanwhile, Strike will liaise with the local police and review the data Gérard has already collected on these bastards – we’ll look for anything that might shed some light on who they are, what they want, and what Gérard found out that might have provoked this attack.

“Alright, that’s it. Everyone knows what to do?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Then move out, and let’s go get Amélie back home.”

*

The file Gérard put together was extensive, containing speculative information regarding the manpower, financial backup, territory and probable connections to bombings, attacks, other kidnappings and property damage among other things. Also, possibly most importantly, he found out what they called themselves: Talon. Finally, a name for the big bad.

But what was disturbing, was the fact that the data gathered by Gérard only really allowed one single conclusion: Talon was large, its influence reaching internationally across continents, with deep pockets that were more than able to finance operations all over the globe simultaneously, which in turn indicated that they had a veritable army of highly trained, well-equipped mercenaries at their beck and call. Just as Gabriel suspected, Talon was involved with several Brazilian gangs that dealt in weapons, one of which they were sent to clean up after when the pacifier units disbanded them. It explained why Sombra and Ifrit were so interested first in São Paulo, then Bamako, and now Zürich. If they were truly shadowing Talon’s steps. Brazil for the weapons, Mali for the civil war, and Zürich … for Overwatch. But which side were the vigilantes on? Talon’s, or Gabriel’s? After all, Sombra might have been involved in Jack’s death, and Ifrit was a known thief.

While this information clarified some things, it didn’t answer the question why Talon kidnapped Amélie – why, and why now, and why her? Wouldn’t it have been smarter, strategically, to either abduct Gérard, or even kill him?

Not wanting to dwell on that thought, and rather choosing to be glad that neither of the Lacroix’ was killed, he joined the search for Amélie together with Mirembe and Al-Farouk, after forwarding a redacted version of the file and the abduction report to the local police, as well as Interpol. Liao he instructed with shutting down the airspace around Zürich for all non-civilian air traffic, in hopes of trapping Talon on the ground.

McCree and his team already swept the immediate vicinity of the scene of the crime, reporting very little in regards to traces left by Talon, which didn’t surprise anyone. Kimiko, meanwhile, told them that Talon had gained full access to the Lacroix’ apartment via a subroutine in the system, effectively shutting it down and leaving the couple without any defenses.

Gabriel continued to have McCree’s team sweep the area, but ordered Kimiko and Ana to join him and team Strike. The area where the Lacroix’ lived was quite expensive, with lots of luxury apartments. There were little opportunities to keep anyone confined for long, so Gabriel had his group disperse and look in the less reputable neighborhoods of Zürich. Those were neighborhoods with empty factory buildings, abandoned office blocks, and entire streets still marred by the destruction the Omnic Crisis had wrought. While the possibility was higher that Talon brought Amélie here, it also made the search much more complicated. Without knowing the area like the back of his hand, there were too many nooks and crannies that might slip under his radar.

And in the back of his head, a voice wondered whether Talon hadn’t already brought Amélie far, far away from here, while another voice calmly counted the hours, minutes and seconds, as he knew that the likelihood of retrieving Amélie alive sank with every passing moment. Even more so, since they still hadn’t received a ransom demand.

The sun was dawning already, cresting over the horizon to herald a cool, late spring morning, when Gabriel split off from his team to investigate the destroyed husk of a house. He kept his sidearm at the ready, aware that they were still in civilian space, but also knowing that he couldn’t risk letting Talon get the drop on him if he actually managed to stumble upon them. Outside, the city was stirring, already buzzing with activity. No one ever seemed to sleep these days.

Gabriel was about to signal his team that the building was empty, when a creaking noise sounded, and brittle debris rained onto his head from the broken ceiling. Cautiously, he readied his weapon and went to the balcony to peer up onto the roof.

“ _Hola_ , Gabe.”

He cursed, loudly, and in all the languages he knew, and then pointed an accusing finger at Sombra’s face peeking over the edge of the roof.

“You’ve got some nerve showing up here. What is it with you people and trouble, anyway?”

When Sombra merely shrugged and disappeared, Gabriel cursed again and pulled himself up onto the roof of the building himself. He came face to face with Sombra, standing in front of the telltale flicker of their camouflage jet, and, of course, Ifrit glaring at them both with crossed arms.

“So, care to explain yourselves?” Gabriel growled.

“We need you to lift the airspace ban,” Sombra said, waving her pink gloved hand. “They might have taken that woman, but I can track them … if you allow us to leave.”

“And why should I do that? Who’s to say you’re not in cahoots with Talon?”

“Ah. At least you know who you’re up against now.”

“I’m still not going to release the airspace. For all I know, you’re terrorists yourselves,” Gabriel said, throwing a pointed look at Ifrit, who was wearing his newly stolen gear. When no reaction came, he turned back to Sombra. “I’ll think about it … if,” he raised a finger, “and only if you give me all the information you’ve got on Talon.”

“We can’t do that,” Sombra muttered, shaking her head. “Our database is secure, whereas yours is not.”

“Are you saying Overwatch is compromised?”

“He,” she pointed at Ifrit over her shoulder, “said that you chose your team well. They can be trusted. But don’t trust anyone else. Not even your friends. And certainly not the computers.”

“So now you’re telling me how to lead my people?” Gabriel huffed, glaring at Ifrit’s impassive mask furiously. “Who the fuck are you, to tell me how to do my job, huh?”

“Who am I? I’m me,” came Ifrit’s modified voice, finally.

“Don’t play fucking word games with me!” Gabriel roared, pulling his sidearm. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sombra back away. Smart girl. Ifrit, however, didn’t move a muscle. “How am I supposed to trust a man who hides his face, a man I don’t know?”

“But you do know me.”

“Those stints in São Paulo and Bamako don’t count, that was- …”

“What about Los Angeles, then? Siberia? Vladivostok? Cairo? Brisbane? Cape Town?” Ifrit uncurled from his stiff position, and slowly strode towards Gabriel. “Ulaanbaatar? Isfahan? Macau? Miami? Quito? Belmopan?”

Gabriel stared in horror as Ifrit calmly stepped in front of him, pressing the muzzle of Gabriel’s gun against his chest, directly over the spot where his heart was. His mask’s polished surface glinted impassively, reflecting Gabriel’s stunned expression back at himself.

“Rome,” Ifrit added, quietly.

“Who … Who are you?” Gabriel asked, voice strangled. He knew the answer – there was only one person that remained by his side for so long – but feared it, feared what he might say or do if- …

“You were operating on one false assumption,” Ifrit said, and reached up to unclasp the fastenings of his tactical visor. “This false assumption is based on evidence you believed to lead to one single, undeniable conclusion. That Jack Morrison is dead.”

Gabriel held his breath, both hoping for and dreading what might happen next.

Ifrit lifted the mask from his face and looked at him with familiar, piercing blue eyes. Then he pulled off the balaclava underneath, face grim and guarded.

“But I’m not dead.”

Gabriel heard himself make a strange, gasping kind of noise, but it felt detached from himself. It wasn’t his hands that dropped the gun. It wasn’t his feet that carried him backwards, away, _away_ from the horrible specter, the apparition, the ghost – because it couldn’t be Jack Morrison standing in front of him with a tightly controlled expression on his face. It _couldn’t_.

“Gabriel,” said the ghost, a thousand words contained in this name.

But when his hand reached for Gabriel, he cried out and dodged it, terrified of what might happen. Jack was always faster than Gabriel, though, and just when he felt his foot connect with nothing but air, a steadying hand gripped hard onto his elbow, pulling him back from the edge of the roof.

“Careful. I’ve got a lot to tell you yet.”

“Like what,” Gabriel spat, feeling control over his body return like the pins-and-needles sensation of blood rushing through a dead limb. Or maybe it was just his skin tingling  from where Jack was touching him, through layers and layers. But staring into Jack’s eyes as they both struggled for words was like … It was unbearable, like gazing directly into the sun. He averted his eyes, detachedly noting that he definitely would have fallen to his death if not for Jack.

Jack, who wasn’t dead.

“How are you alive? I was there when you died. I tried to pull you from the car, and it was … It was Christmas Eve, and there was snow- …”

Gabriel only realized that he was crying, sobbing in fact, when he was pulled into the embrace of a warm, solid body. His nose flooded with the familiar smell of Jack, and as he relaxed into the touch, he felt a beautiful purr rising from the depth of Jack’s chest.

“That- …  That wasn’t me in that car, just some unfortunate John Doe with the right kind of injuries,” Jack admitted, his voice hitching halfway through. His purr kept on, however, steady and strong. “I didn’t think- … I thought you wouldn’t mind that much. That you wouldn’t mourn.”

Affronted, Gabriel straightened in Jack’s embrace and growled, nipping threateningly at his cheek and ear.

“Of course I’m going to mourn the death of my best friend,” he snapped, and then buried his face in the crook of Jack’s neck again. But that was a lie, wasn’t it? Jack wasn’t just his best friend. His heart clenched as Jack’s purr petered out, caught once again in the realization that he loved this man, and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing him again.

“I’m sorry, Gabe, but we have to act fast right now. I’m- … I owe you an explanation, I know I do, and we should talk. For what it’s worth, I was about to tell you last night, but you were asleep and in rut, and then Sombra found evidence of Talon activity in the city, and … Now you have to lift the airspace ban, so we can take up pursuit.”

Gabriel involuntarily tightened his grip on Jack, unwilling to let go just yet. At his insistence, he let Jack put an arm’s length of distance between them, and greedily drank in the sight of Jack’s torn expression – he’d missed that little line between his eyebrows, and the creases in the corners or his mouth; the symmetrical planes of his face; the exact curve and shape of his jaw. Not caring how it looked, he pressed forward again to playfully nip at the underside of Jack’s chin, which Jack reciprocated by butting his nose against Gabriel’s ear.

“As sweet as it is to watch you two eat each other alive, we really have to go.”

“Yes, Sombra,” Jack chuckled, with an indulgent undertone.

“But we could help you. If you give us the information, you could have the whole might of Overwatch behind you to- …”

“Gabriel,” Jack interrupted him, pitying and weary. “Don’t you realize? Overwatch won’t be of any use against Talon, because Talon _is_ essentially Overwatch.”

“ _What_?”

“I can’t explain everything right now, but haven’t you noticed that the Overwatch logistics department is severely overfunded? All that money has gone into buying Talon new tech and weapons – it’s the UN’s new strategy to promote one terrorist organization to get rid of the others, and they think they can control Talon, but they can’t. Blackwatch was originally meant to be the scapegoat, built to do the dirty work they’re now paying Talon to do, though it was still tied to regulations and restrictions, not to mention it was you who was in control of it,” Jack said, gesturing to Gabriel as if that explained everything. “And they couldn’t get rid of you, because they needed you to exercise pressure onto me after they already removed my other weak spot.”

“What other weak spot?” Gabriel asked, dazed.

“My mother, of course,” Jack replied. “Gabriel, haven’t you looked at anything in my files?”

“I did … I mean, I tried to, but- … Ólafsdóttir caught me.”

Jack grimaced.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry I threw you into this, but I saw no other choice. I had to remove myself from the system, to combat it from the outside. I was the only one who knew enough to do so, and I couldn’t bring anyone else into the loop, because then Ólafsdóttir would have killed you as soon as she found out.”

“Which,” Sombra interjected, “is still a big concern, alright? So, we should definitely go, before your tracker alerts them to the fact that you’ve been standing on this roof for too long without apparent reason.”

Gabriel cursed and watched as Sombra climbed into the camouflaged transporter, disappearing midair.

“Jack,” he said helplessly.

“The airspace ban, Gabriel,” Jack just said, lifting his mask to his face. His next words were already distorted again by the voice modulator. “Let us take care of Talon. If … When we find Amélie, I’ll have Sombra send an anonymous tip to the police.”

“Wait!” Gabriel called after him. Jack – now Ifrit again – hesitated, waiting, but no words came to Gabriel’s mind. No words that he could say out loud. ‘Please stay’? Or maybe ‘Don’t leave me again’? Or perhaps ‘I love you, Jack, please come back to me’?

In the end he said nothing, forced to watch him get swallowed by the jet’s camouflage system. Its engines roared to life, spitting dust and debris in Gabriel’s face as the ship lifted off. When it was gone, his comms crackled into life.

“Strike-1, this is Strike-2,” came Mirembe’s voice. “What was that? It sounded like a stealth fighter jet.”

“This is Strike-1. It’s nothing,” he told her. “All clear over here. Let’s rendezvous back at the HQ.”

As hopeless as the search for Amélie had been before, the thought of scouring the city for signs of her now seemed even more pointless. All he could do was wait, it seemed. Sit, and wait for Sombra and Jack to find her. Jack, who was alive and well.

Hours later, after he debriefed the rest of the team and ordered everyone to get a few hours of sleep while he had Liao scour satellite images with the assistance of Athena’s image recognition program, he lay in bed himself and stared up at the ceiling without actually seeing it.

Jack was alive.

It made sense, of course it did; it explained all the little inconsistencies and mysteries surrounding the accident, their subsequent meetings. It also seemed logical in the face of the revelation that not only had Jack been blackmailed into cooperating with Ólafsdóttir, but also that Overwatch was a front for the UN secretly backing Talon. This side of the equation was all clear, neat and wrapped with a cherry on top.

What still made no sense was the other side of it, and that left Gabriel trembling and breathless, lying frozen under his blanket, and unable to sleep.

Jack said he didn’t think Gabriel would mourn him. Jack faked his own death to combat the corruption that had taken hold inside Overwatch like a parasite. Jack fought against Talon all this time, while he was assumed to be dead. Jack tried to get Gabriel to see it too, and meanwhile let him believe he was someone else.

Didn’t Jack care about Gabriel at all, and what it would do to him to lose his friend in one moment only to be thrust into an international, political conspiracy in the next moment? Or did he think that maybe Gabriel wanted this, would thrive among backstabbers, thieves, murderers and extortioners? Did he not think him worthy or capable enough to handle the truth? Did it hurt Jack as much as it hurt Gabriel? Was he happy to see him again or not? Would he come back to him, restore their friendship, or anything else he was willing to give, or was he going to leave Gabriel alone again? Abandon him?

He tossed and turned. It wasn’t fair to think that, Jack had himself to think of first. He clearly had to act in self-defense, to protect his own life and that of anyone he cared about. One of which, he admitted, was Gabriel. He should be _grateful_.

But when he closed his eyes, all he saw was fire, his hands covered in blisters and foam.

With a cry he threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. Haphazardly throwing on some clothes, he decided to join Liao in scouring through the satellite data in search of Talon and Amélie. But on his way to Liao’s computer lab, his thoughts drifted back to Jack. Did his family even know that he was still alive, or was he letting his sister and father mourn him as well? Or were they helping him keep his cover? Was this why they insisted on cremating the body immediately afterwards – to conceal the fact that it wasn’t Jack at all?

He knocked on Liao’s door and let himself in without waiting for a response.

“Hey, boss,” Liao greeted him cheerfully, cramming a handful of gummy bears into a ravenous mouth, and turned back to the wall-to-wall screens. “Are you here for the show?”

“Did you find anything already?”

“Nah. Well, SKYGUIDE reports five flights in the area around the time Amélie was abducted that match what we would expect from a Talon transport. One of them was verified to be a diplomatic flight to Berlin, two of them didn’t leave the country, one was headed for Hong Kong, and one couldn’t be traced properly. I’d say the latter is most likely our culprit, but as I said, we don’t know where they went.”

Gabriel rubbed his chin and hummed. He didn’t agree with Liao, but he couldn’t say that. The untraceable transport was probably Sombra and Ifr- … Jack.

“What about the timing, which ones left before our airspace ban, and which left after I had you lift it again?”

“The plane heading for Hong Kong left before that, as did the two domestic flights. Berlin and the unknown one were after the ban.”

“Alright. Let’s assume that Talon left the country with Amélie to put as much distance between them and the scene of the crime. That leaves Berlin and Hong Kong as possible destinations.” But did Talon manage to slip out before Gabriel could enforce the ban, or were they caught in it? Were Sombra and Jack directly on their tail, tracking them to Berlin, or were they delayed hours upon hours, and had to follow them to Hong Kong with a big disadvantage?

“I can check in with the airports there to see if they have more information on those flights,” Liao offered, already typing away.

Gabriel was just about to inspect a still image the security system installed into the Lacroix’ apartment must have captured of the Talon agents, when his communicator started beeping wildly. He still hadn’t changed the tone from its heart attack inducing screech to something more humane. Wondering what Veronika might want from him at … roughly 3am, he fumbled for the thing. It wasn’t a message, though, but a phone call.

“Hello?” he said, warily.

“Commander Reyes,” came an all too familiar voice.

“Secretary Ólafsdóttir,” he bit out. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I need you to stop chasing that plane. Right now.”

Gabriel sucked in a sharp breath, eyes darting to where Liao was still diligently typing away.

“We’re only trying to track where the abductors took Amélie Lacr- …”

“I know what you are doing. This is my last warning: stop it, right now, or I’ll have to do something we will both regret very much.” He heard her take a deep breath of her own on the other end. “Now, Commander, if you will. I’ll stay on the line, to confirm your compliance.”

“I can’t just- …”

“Right now!”

Gabriel grit his teeth and kept the communicator pressed to his cheek as he barked out Liao’s name.

“Yeah, boss? I’ve almost got it.”

“No, Liao. Finish it tomorrow. You should get some rest, too.”

“But boss- …”

“ _Liao_.”

The cyber specialist let out an involuntary growl at Gabriel’s domineering tone of voice, but was quickly cowed, and vacated the work station. Sliding past him, a questioning look was thrown in the direction of the communicator.

“With kidnapping victims every minute counts. But I guess you already know that,” Liao said quietly, and then left.

“Happy now?” Gabriel hissed after he was sure that Liao was out of earshot.

“Thank you, Commander. Your friends and family may live another day.”

And then the call disconnected with an anti-climactic click.

Quietly simmering with anger, frustration and shame, Gabriel remained alone in Liao’s office for a few more minutes, trying to get back some semblance of control over his emotions. He wasn’t ever going to get used to being bullied into doing something he felt was fundamentally wrong. What if they weren’t going to find Amélie in time because of this? Of course, that was probably what Ólafsdóttir wanted. Otherwise, Overwatch might become a threat to the UN’s new pet, Talon.

Walking through the dark, abandoned corridors of the Zürich HQ, Gabriel fiddled with his phone, tempted to try and call Jack on his burner number. But if someone overheard the conversation, or managed to trace the call … No, it was too risky. On the other hand, Ólafsdóttir and her people had no reason to suspecting anything, did they?

Before he could chicken out, he thumbed the display and searched for the number Sombra typed in when they met in Geneva. Unawares, his feet had brought Gabriel to his and McCree’s little hideout, and he leaned against the window with the view onto the lake as he waited for someone to pick up, or a computerized voice to tell him that the number wasn’t available anymore. When the line crackled, he nearly dropped his phone.

“Gabriel, you’re lucky that Sombra encrypted this phone to hell and back.”

He gasped, hit once more with the realization that, yes, Jack was alive.  This was his voice. He was somewhere, healthy and hale, and picked up the phone when Gabriel called.

“Gabe, this isn’t really the right time. Or did something happen?”

“No, it’s- …” He cleared his throat and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the window. “Ólafsdóttir just shut us down. I just need to know if … Are you on their trail? Is it Berlin or Hong Kong?”

He heard Jack huff, and then, faintly, Sombra’s voice in the background.

“Hong Kong. But Sombra says there’s something weird about their traces, and we’re not sure Amélie is really here. I’ll- … I can’t keep you posted, but Gabe, I promise, I _swear_ , we’ll do our best to get her home. You know that.”

“Yeah, I do.”

A few moments of silence hung between them, stretched nearly across half the globe. Gabriel wracked his brain for something to say, to delay the inevitable goodbyes, anything.

“If there isn’t anything else,” said Jack, and Gabriel panicked.

“No, wait!”

Another couple of seconds, this time of expectant silence from Jack.

“What is it?”

“Jack, I- … It’s- …”

“Gabriel, I really need to- …”

“I just wanted you to know that- …” Gabriel bit his lip. “It’s good to hear your voice.”

Silently cursing himself and gently hitting his head on the wall, he nearly missed Jack’s quiet admission: “Yeah, you too.”

Neither of them said anything in farewell; they just hung up on each other. He didn’t know why Jack didn’t say anything, but Gabriel’s throat was clogged with too much longing and fear to nonchalantly say something like “catch you later” or something equally stupid. So now he had to live with having ended the call like a love-struck, moody child instead.

But at least now he knew that they were tracking Amélie’s abductors to Hong Kong. They were going to bring her back, and it would all turn out to be just fine. Or so he told himself, throughout the morning, as he sat next to Gérard, who slept fitfully on a cot in sickbay, where Angela’s minions could keep an eye on his health. Gabriel retreated here to avoid his team’s questions. He gave them nonsense orders. Had McCree comb through the city again, and told Liao to look in Berlin “on a hunch”. Everyone could smell the bullshit on him, and he couldn’t bear it anymore. So he came here, to the only place no one would ask him painful questions, and only because the only person around was having nightmares instead.

It had been a while since Gabriel felt the need to pray. He hadn’t regularly done it since the Omnic Crisis, in fact. But perhaps it was time to revive the habit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think there is one more chapter, maybe two, I'll have to see. But I'm thinking about doing a sequel, so maybe drop me a comment if you're interested in that? I'll have to know before I finish this, because if there's no sequel, the ending is going to be a bit different.
> 
> **Headcanons 'n stuff:**
> 
> 1\. I know I basically gave the revelation away already with the tags and y'all are smart cookies that figured out that night jogger = São Paulo assailant = Geneva biker = Ifrit = Jack but ye ... If I didn't advertise that the Major Character Death isn't permanent, no one would ever read this shit ya know.  
> 2\. Ifrit are Jinn, demonic creatures neither good nor bad, affiliated with fire. Instead of Soldier: 76, I guess the name the locals gave him stuck, and that's his vigilante identity now. Idk, he's just not the grumpy, depressed, pessimistic grandpa yet. But did you catch all the Jack/S76 references I dropped all over the place? Gotta catch 'em all!  
> 3\. I have no idea what's supposed to happen when someone gets kidnapped without ransom, especially what the fuck an international peacekeeping organization would do about it?  
> 4\. Jack's whistling and its use in the field is just a brain fart of mine, don't know if it even makes sense. I can't see him being good at dancing, like, at all (did you guys see the fake dad dance emote holy fUCK). But I'm the kind of writer who over-romanticizes both dancing and music, so I had to have something in here that scratched this particular itch. Though Gabe was totally a ballerina when he was a kid, I mean his pirouettes are to die (die die!) for. It's why he likes Amélie so much. I absolutely headcanon her as some sort of competitive dancer.  
> 5\. MORE LACROIX LOVE IN THIS FANDOM!


	5. I'm getting used to walking on a thin line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, looks like we need another epilogue-ish, probably shorter chapter to properly wrap off and introduce us to the second part of this, since so many of you guys said that you'd like a sequel! Thank you so much for your feedback, lovelies <3 Though I'm afraid it will have to get darker before it can get light again. Therefore, some **non-spoilery WARNINGS:** semi-graphic depictions of violence, blood/gore, unchecked medical jargon, and a bit of substance (alcohol) abuse. There, that's it.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> PS: Chapter title from "Thin Line" by honeyhoney

Taking care of an omega was more difficult than most people would imagine. Gabriel was used to taking care of Jack, but usually took the alpha route and distracted him with silly or serious stuff until whatever crisis was plaguing him right then had passed. Generally, as an alpha, he just wasn’t equipped to handle someone else’s fears and worries. Hell, he was barely equipped to handle his own. Omegas and betas had the tools to distract, divert, soothe and cheer. But this time, Gabriel refused to delegate the job to someone else. This was his responsibility.

For the days following Amélie’s abduction, Gabriel rigorously kept to Gérard’s side, ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with him, and filled out paperwork at the Blackwatch Commander’s bedside. He did it to support his second-in-command, his colleague, a man he would one day like to call a close friend. Shamefully, he also did it to alleviate his own guilt at making his team do anything that wasn’t directly contributing to the search for Amélie. Ólafsdóttir was still riding his ass about leaving Talon alone, sending him messages and calling him at all hours of the day and even during the night. He didn’t dare to send a team to Hong Kong. He couldn’t let Liao do his magic. He couldn’t do anything productive at all.

So he sat here and listened to Gérard cry himself to sleep instead.

The only relief that Gabriel got these days were the small, encrypted messages Jack – or maybe it was Sombra, who knew – sent him, all with the same old key, _charlotte_. Just little updates on their search, some clue they found, a Talon agent they spotted, but it kept Gabriel hoping. If only he could share this with anyone, especially Gérard, the heavy weight sitting on his heart wouldn’t threaten to crush him any longer.

“Greetings, Commander.”

He looked up from an intel dossier on the ongoing cleanup and containment measures around the Vladivostok Omnium, to apprehensively look at Genji Shimada standing in the doorway.

“Can I help you, Agent?”

“I believe,” the cyborg said softly, stepping silently into the room, “that perhaps we might help each other.”

“Oh?”

The younger man hummed softly, the green glow of his visor and armor bathing the defeated lines of Gérard’s sleeping form in stark light.

“I must admit that I have been struggling,” Genji said finally. “With … the changes to my life and body. With my purpose. I believe that you have as well, if you don’t mind me being so blunt.”

“What are you saying, exactly?” Gabriel asked, contemplative. Genji had always been a quiet one – driven, until they took down the Shimada clan; determined, until he’d had his revenge; silent ever since. This conversation was a long time coming, in his opinion.

“I am asking you to accept my resignation. I gave the written form to Mrs. Suter, for you to sign at your earliest convenience.”

Gabriel nodded.

“Where will you go?”

“There are … people that might help me find what I am seeking.” Genji paused, looking at his hands. Hands made to kill. Weapons all by themselves. “I don’t think I can do this alone. But … you have inspired me, Commander. I admire the way you coped with the loss of a great friend and brother to you. And I saw that you did not do it on your own. I shall go and seek similar help.”

“Then you have my blessing, of course. And good luck, Genji.”

“Thank you. I will need it.”

Gabriel waited, pen hovering uncertainly over his hardlight tablet where he had been analyzing the data from the report.

“Is there … anything else?”

Genji made a soft sound he couldn’t decipher – the distortion of his visor and cybernetic implants was too great to clearly identify whether it was a chuckle or a hum.

“I have seen something similar before, in my brother,” he said after a moment. “He thought by harming those he loves he was protecting them. Which, of course, wasn’t the case at all. And you saw what happened to the Shimada- _gumi_ later.”

“I don’t think I understand what- …”

“You are keeping your team back,” Genji cut in, precise and unrelenting as his legendary blade. “For what purpose, and for what reason I cannot fathom. But you are doing them harm by letting an innocent civilian woman suffer in the hands of terrorists. Think of what this means for Overwatch.”

Gabriel grit his teeth, torn between wanting to justify himself and barking at Genji to keep his nose – his visor – out of other peoples’ businesses. What held him back, in the end, wasn’t any motivation to play nice and give Genji the farewell he deserved. He didn’t say anything, because he knew on the one hand that the consequences of revealing the network of blackmail and corruption that was keeping him entrapped would be devastating, and on the other hand he realized that anything he said in his own defense would be invalid. This wasn’t the place or the time to sugarcoat anything. This was the moment he had to make a choice. And Genji was the one to deliver it to him.

Could he really live with himself if Talon killed Amélie? Could he look his team-mates in the eye after letting them down; after denying them to fight? He did trust Jack to bring Amélie back, but that was almost beside the point. His people’s trust in him as a leader was waning with every second he was holding them back. This could potentially be disastrous for Overwatch as a cohesive unit, regardless of the outcome of their rescue mission.

Ólafsdóttir was playing a smart game. Either he let her have his way, and Amélie would die, leaving Gérard devastated, Blackwatch inoperable, morale low, and Gabriel’s own popularity in the dumps. Or he could defy her, mount a search, bring Amélie home, buy Overwatch some time – but it could mean the death of someone he loved. Of course, Jack and Sombra were a factor Ólafsdóttir couldn’t foresee, but even if Gabriel complied with the UN Secretary and they rescued Amélie, he might lose the confidence of his people.

“You might just be jumping off the train moments before it crashes,” was all Gabriel offered.

“It still might not crash at all,” Genji replied, and zipped off with that unnatural speed of his, leaving the afterimage of green light impressed on Gabriel’s retina.

“Fucking ninjas,” he muttered fondly.

Gérard had slept soundly through the entire exchange, but even in the dim light he could see the strain of fear and grief in the grooves etched around his eyes and mouth, between his brows, and in the tight clench of his hands even in sleep. When Gabriel thought he had lost Jack, he was adrift. Devastated, sure, but still able to function. But Jack hadn’t been his partner of nearly ten years – and didn’t the mere thought of this make his heart clench – and Jack hadn’t been abducted, the uncertainty looming like a Damocles sword. Amélie might be dead already, left in a ditch somewhere. She might be alive, terrified, and hurt. And that was what was destroying Gérard. Not knowing. Not knowing where his wife was, if she was alright, if she was alive or dead. If she was ever going to come home, and even if she did, in what state she might be in.

Could he really take the responsibility for crushing this man’s heart?

Gabriel calmly finished reading the report sitting in front of him, and then left the room with a last, contemplative look at Gérard’s sleeping form.

Two hours later, he and a team of five were en route to Hong Kong. For the entire flight he cradled the Omnic orb in his hands, praying silently that he had made the right decision.

*

The moment they started attacking the enemy base, Gabriel knew that something was wrong. It was too easy to get in, only two guards to choke out, and no other security measures. Once inside, he feared that they were too late, that Talon had already shipped Amélie somewhere else. He had McCree with him as his temporary SIC, who pressed forward with a grim determination despite Gabriel’s warning looks. Kimiko he brought for her stealth capabilities, and he could see that she was suspicious as well. Mirembe, too, diligently covered their flanks, weapons never wavering or dropping despite the lull. Even Bayless was quiet for once, though Al-Farouk made up for that with his incessant, nervous muttering.

They all knew how important this was, feeling the urgency in Gabriel. It was equal parts fear of being too late – missing Amélie or finding her dead – and sick desperation. Who was he going to lose for this?

Gabriel’s team slowly covered the first and second floor of the building. Everything was in order, except for the distinct lack of Talon presence.

“Liao,” he muttered into his comm. “Are you sure this is where you tracked them to? There’s literally nothing here.”

“What? Yeah, I’m sure. There’s CCTV, and satellite imaging, and- …”

“It’s okay. Just … In case this is an ambush, you know what to do.”

“Yes, sir. I have Protocol Slingshot prepared.”

He shut off his external comms and met Kimiko’s gaze. A headshake. Upper floor was clear. McCree cursed loudly, spinning his six-shot around his finger the way he only did to either show off, to hide his upset mood, or when he was really drunk.

“Boss, there’s a cellar door here,” came Mirembe’s voice.

“Alright, last chance. Bayless, on my signal.”

He waited for the other agent to get into position at the door, then counted down from three with his fingers. When his hand formed a fist, Bayless wrenched the door open, and Gabriel charged through with his team behind him.

The room was absolutely dark, but only for a split second, until all of their chestplates registered the change in lighting and automatically switched on the built-in flashlights.

“ _S’il vous plaît, non! Ne me faites pas the mal!”_

“Amélie? Amélie, it’s me!” Gabriel cried, putting a hand in front of the light coming from his suit so as not to blind her with it.

Because there she was, sitting slumped on a chair, desperately turning her head away from them, still begging in French. He knew enough of the language to glean that she didn’t recognize them – that she thought they were Talon. Behind him he could hear the relieved and distressed noises of his team-mates, but all that mattered was the woman in front of him.

“Amélie,” he tried again, and this time went down on his knees to approach her. “It’s me, Gabriel. Do you remember me? Amélie, you’re safe now, we’re bringing you home.”

“Gérard?” she sobbed. “ _S’il te plait, non …_ ”

“McCree, come here for a second.”

In this situation, Gabriel’s experience said that it was best to let someone who wasn’t an alpha handle guiding Amélie through her rescue. As an alpha herself, her senses were likely trapped in a tunnel, a trance-like loop of constant terror. Another alpha would only lead her further down the rabbit hole. As a beta-omega switch, McCree was the only one of their team naturally capable of grounding Amélie in reality and soothing her agitated state. As he talked to her in his low, Southern drawl, Gabriel had Bayless, their least dominant alpha, release Amélie’s bindings. By the time she was free of the ropes that tied her to the chair, she was lucid enough to at least recognize their faces. When McCree carried her out of the cellar, she reached out for Gabriel.

“Thank you,” she whispered, voice rough from either disuse or from screaming herself hoarse.

He accepted her hand and held it, not caring how awkward it was to reach around McCree’s shoulder; he held onto Amélie’s dead cold fingers until they reached fresh air and sunlight.

“Liao, come in,” he spoke into his comm, eyes fixed on the woman wedged between him and McCree. She met his eyes tiredly, head lolling and grip weakening. But that wasn’t what concerned him.

“Boss?”

“Mission status: success. We’re coming home, Liao, and we have our target.”

He blocked out Liao’s excited reply, an ashy taste in his mouth from calling Amélie a ‘target’. But she was. And he wasn’t sure, exactly, whether they actually saved her. Her hand, cradled limply in his own fingers, was a sickly shade of purple, as was the rest of the skin visible to him. Her eyes, too, had changed color, and were now a bright yellow. Something had happened to her, and he was afraid to find out what.

“Tell Mercy to be on standby, we’re going to need her medical expertise,” he continued, aware that he cut off Liao’s rant, but also not caring at all.

As he escorted his team back the way they came, he kept looking over his shoulder, half expecting a girl with a pink glove to wave at him cheekily. That never happened, and instead the crawling sense of dread took a firm hold in his spine, causing him to be silent amidst his relieved and celebrating team-mates. Where was Jack? Why didn’t he and Sombra find Amélie before Overwatch did? This felt too easy, and he worried about Amélie’s condition. He didn’t dare to celebrate just yet.

This turned out to be wise, as they got attacked less than half a klick away from their transport. A group of Talon mercenaries got the drop on them, and torn between engaging the agents and protecting their precious cargo, Gabriel’s team struggled with the sudden assault.

“McCree, Al-Farouk, you’re staying with Amélie,” Gabriel barked out, and then to the rest of his team: “Phalanx formation! Mirembe take point with me.”

They quickly fell into their positions, a well-oiled machine, before Talon could even get any shots off. Their red-tinted masks glowed menacingly, but Gabriel wasn’t going to let himself be intimidated. With a roar he and Mirembe charged, shotguns and pulse rifle each raised and at the ready. Meanwhile, he knew, Bayless and Kimiko were going to cover their flanks and McCree’s retreat to a safer location.

Having Mirembe at his side in a fight felt very similar to fighting with Jack used to be, except she was slower and didn’t rush ahead like Jack always did. It was just as relieving as it was throwing him off. He noticed it the first time they got out of sync, and they both had to reload at the same time.

“Your six!” was all he managed to shout, and immediately jumped forward to intercept the mercenary trying to get Mirembe from behind. He had to drop one of his shotguns, but the agent fell with a satisfying crunch to the left hook he delivered.

“Thanks, boss,” Mirembe gasped, letting loose a spray of pulse munition that felled another enemy.

Despite these small inconsistencies in their teamwork, Gabriel felt like this assault wasn’t too much of a problem – they were drawing most of Talon’s attention to them, leaving Bayless and Kimiko to clean up the rest of the stragglers, the way he planned it.

Only, at the same time that Gabriel emptied his shotguns again, dropping another two men, he heard a chorus of strangled cries behind him, alongside the distinct sound of a flashbang from McCree.

If Gabriel hadn’t been working with Reinhardt for years, he might have been stunned in shock at the sight of a huge man wielding an almost as huge axe, swinging it relentlessly at McCree, Amélie and Bayless. But as it were, he merely shouted at Mirembe to cover him, and charged.

Before he could reach the behemoth of a man, seemingly just as large, if not larger than even Reinhardt, he saw Kimiko try to take him out with her combat Taser, which didn’t show any effect at all. So Gabriel, determined, wasn’t going to pull any punches.

He leapt over the bodies of some dead Talon agents, full-body tackling the axe wielding man mid-swing. Gabriel took him down with him, and used his superior flexibility and agility to trap him on the ground with a deft grip and a shotgun to the face. He was just about to victoriously give the order to restrain the man, when he became aware of the pained sounds coming from McCree.

The huge man trapped beneath him grinned, showing large gaps in his teeth peeking out from behind his mask.

“Do your worst, I have done my job,” he said, and Gabriel saw red. Knocking out a guy nearly twice his width and several heads taller than him surely demanded the full use of his enhanced strength. And if there was a cracking sound, no one had to know whether it came from Gabriel’s fist, the man’s skull, or the pavement below.

“McCree,” he barked out, scrambling off the unconscious body.

“It was the axe, sir,” Bayless stammered. In his lap, McCree lay slumped on his side, fully revealing the extent of his injuries. Blood, bits of bone shining through exposed flesh, and mangled limbs. His arm looked the worst, almost unrecognizable in its mashed state.

“Grab him,” Gabriel told Bayless. “Mirembe, you take Amélie. We have to hurry to the transport.”

“What about him?” Kimiko asked, pointing at the felled behemoth.

“Leave him. We don’t have time to properly secure him.”

He could see her displeased frown, but right now, his priority was to bring both Amélie and McCree somewhere safe where they could assess the situation. Plus, he foolishly left his biotic emitters in the transport.

Reaching the plane wasn’t the difficult part, seeing as they had already dispatched their unfriendly welcoming committee. Gabriel sent Al-Farouk to the cockpit right away to bring them home as quickly as possible. More difficult was facing McCree as he lay writhing on the makeshift stretcher, bathed in the yellowish glow from a biotic emitter.

“Hang on in there, kid,” he said.

“Really fuckin’ hurts, boss,” McCree gasped, face contorted, and Gabriel helplessly watched as tears fell from his pain-crazed eyes.

“Bayless, you’re with Amélie. Make sure she’s comfortable,” he said absentmindedly. “Kimiko, assist him. Mirembe, get us a proper tourniquet, we need to stop that bleeding.”

The “yessirs” in the background didn’t register anymore, as Gabriel gripped McCree’s good hand, ignoring the mangled one, and forced the young man to meet his gaze.

“Focus, Jesse. Look at me, just at me. Don’t look away, not even for a second. Just listen to my voice, and ignore everything else, anyone else but me.” He put a steadying hand against McCree’s cheek, not caring about the wetness from his tears. “It’s going to be alright. _Focus_.”

McCree cried out when the transport rattled, their takeoff less than smooth.

“Hurts, boss. Fuckin’ hurts so much!”

“I know, Jesse. I know. Don’t think about that, think about your cigars. Come on, think about something else. You got any secrets? Do you have a sweetheart I don’t know about?”

“Naw. Naw, no sweeth- …” He trailed off, eyes rolling back in his head.

“Stay with me, Jesse, don’t take our eyes off me!”

But McCree … Jesse wasn’t an alpha – couldn’t find comfort in a focus bond Gabriel was trying to induce artificially, to take his mind off his agony. He was a beta-omega switch, willing and capable to help others, but completely self-sustaining, not needing anyone else, not letting anyone else in to support him in return.

Gabriel was powerless, forced to watch him writhe and cry until the biotic emitter flickered, sizzling out, which sent Jesse into such a state of unbearable pain that he passed out. They installed another emitter, only to help stave off the bleeding that even the tourniquet couldn’t stop entirely without threatening to deaden the arm permanently, and a saline drip to combat the effects of the blood loss. They couldn’t do anything else until they reached Mercy.

Was this Gabriel’s punishment for going after Talon against Ólafsdóttir’s wishes?

As Jesse lay quiet, and his team around him settled in for the hours long flight, Gabriel remained at Jesse’s side, cradling the younger man’s good hand in both of his as he prayed. He prayed for Jesse to survive, to bounce back from this the way he did from everything else. He prayed for forgiveness. He prayed for clarity.

Had he made the right choice?

But of course, this was for him and him alone to find out and decide.

*

It took an entire team of world-renowned medical and engineering scientists, doctors, nurses, and other specialists, sixteen sleepless hours, no less than a bottle of tequila and nine cups of coffee, until Gabriel could breathe again.

“He will make a full recovery,” Angela told him, red rimmed eyes tired over her surgical mask. “It’s going to take a while to get used to the new arm, but … He’s awake. You can go in and see him, if you want.”

“Thank you,” he said, automatically, but when she turned around – probably to get her well-deserved meal and rest – he held her back with a gentle hand on her elbow. “Really, Angela. Thank you. So much. For everything you’ve done for us, for Overwatch.”

The corners of her eyes crinkled a bit, and the blue of them regained some of their gleam. Then, they dulled again.

“You’re welcome, Gabriel.”

The room they put Jesse in to recover from his surgery smelled strongly of antiseptics, and contained little besides the soft sounds of breathing and the rhythmic beep of a heart rate monitor.

“You look like shit, boss.”

“Shut your mouth, kid, it’s not like I worried about your dumb ass,” he shot back, but quietly.

He made his way to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, next to Jesse’s good arm. The kid didn’t even twitch at the shift of the thin, shitty mattress, only blinked tiredly up at him from under his unruly bangs. Gabriel reached out to brush back some of the hair, which earned him a raised eyebrow.

“Yer not gettin’ soft on me, _jefe_ , are ya?”

He couldn’t say anything in return. Couldn’t keep up the banter. And perhaps Jesse saw something on his face, which caused his weak smirk to fall, or maybe it was just fatigue.

“I mean,” the young man whispered, “we got Amélie back. That’s what counts, right? She okay?”

“We had to put her in medical containment for the moment, to monitor her skin discoloration and any side-effects she might suffer from the kidnapping. But I’m told her reunion with Gérard was quite emotional.”

“You weren’t there?” Jesse asked, a small wrinkle appearing between his brows.

“No.”

He lightly put his hand on the younger man’s uninjured shoulder, trying to put as much comfort and support into the gesture as he was able to. In return, Jesse only swallowed thickly and averted his gaze, looking at his new, metal arm peeking out from under his sleeve.

“I’m- …” He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid to try and move it. What if- … It don’t feel right. Like it’s … there, but not there. ‘S weird.”

“You’ll get used to it. Just look at Genji, and how far he’s gotten,” Gabriel said, aiming for a lighthearted tone, but instead it came out desperate. If Jesse’s wince as any indication, he noticed the difference quite keenly.

“Yet he left, no? He told me … Genji said he’s gonna get help, to come to terms with what he’s become. How his body’s changed. I didn’t understand, not really, but- …”

Gabriel watched apprehensively as Jesse strained, staring at his hand with watering eyes, until the fingers twitched once.

“Shit,” he gasped, turning his head away to hide the tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Jesse, look at me. Hey, up here, _pendejo_. You’re going to get some rest now, alright? You’re going to sleep, and recover, and then we’re going to work on that arm. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

He curved his hand around Jesse’s shoulder to get to his neck, and supported it so he could guide him into an awkward, half-lying down hug that muffled the bone-wracking sobs coming out of the young man’s mouth into Gabriel’s padded shoulder. Trying his hand at his best, shitty impression of a soothing purr, he waited until Jesse had cried himself out.

“That was horrible,” he sniffed, as soon as Gabriel put him back down. “Don’t ever purr at me again, boss.”

“What? You brat!”

They smiled at each other shakily, at least until Gabriel noticed Jesse’s drooping eyes.

“Sleep now. Don’t worry about tomorrow.”

The cowboy-wannabe was fast asleep before Gabriel even finished his sentence. He remained sitting there for another few minutes, to make sure he wouldn’t wake, and then quietly retreated to the other side of the room, where he found an adequate resting space in one of the padded visitor chairs.

He wasn’t ready yet to face the outside world. As much as he wanted to stay to keep an eye on Jesse, the decision to keep vigil at his bedside was also rooted in a deep seated wish to not have to face … anything. He didn’t want to deal with Amélie, and her condition; he didn’t want to debrief his team, or write reports; he wasn’t ready to face further consequences of his disobedience. He didn’t want to look outside and find that the world had turned further than he was prepared for. Just like after Jack died … after Jack _fake_ died, he felt severely uprooted, disconnected from the moment. Just then, with Jesse, it had been fine. But he felt great reluctance at having to function outside this room. Because right then he wasn’t the Strike Commander, he was …

His eyes drifted to Jesse McCree’s sleeping form. He couldn’t deny his almost paternal feelings for the youth, ever since he took him under his wing in Blackwatch, years ago. That hadn’t changed since. Gabriel was never going to have children of his own – Jesse came as close to being his son as anyone ever would. Seeing him this hurt, this damaged and afraid, it did something to Gabriel that he couldn’t name.

Bone tired and weary as he was, he knew he wasn’t going to find any sleep, not mere feet from a suffering Jesse, sitting in this crappy chair. So he rummaged in his pockets, and dug out his phone. There were sixteen missed calls, and five messages. None of them were encrypted.

_why the hell are you in HK???_

_she says T activity suddenly ceased we dont know why_

_dont go to that base it’s a trap!_

_theyre coming for you we cant intercept_

_please god answer the damn phone gabe_

Guiltily, he swiped his thumb over the hurried letters, hovering over the last one before deleting them all. Then he dialed a number from his memory.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Jack’s voice came after the second ring, sounding as wrecked as Gabriel felt.

“We made it home,” he muttered in reply.

“Fucking- … Why are you whispering? Gabe, are you okay? Jesus, we saw the aftermath of that ambush, there was blood everywhere- …!”

“I’m fine.” He paused. “Jesse got hurt.”

“McCree?” He heard Jack suck in a breath. “How bad?”

“He’s got a new, shiny arm.”

“Damn.”

They were both silent for a few, stretched-out seconds, and Gabriel had to close his eyes and bite his lip as he listened to Jack breathe. He listened to the distorted sound, and let it ground him enough to continue speaking. On the other end, he was aware, Jack understood that he needed a few moments to compose himself, and felt a surge of searing emotion at the thought that they still knew each other well enough for this instinctive give and take. Alpha and omega. It gave him enough courage to speak up.

“I couldn’t just sit here and wait, Jack. I had to make a choice, and I made it, and now I have to live with the consequences. I’m- … I know I fucked up, I know this is my fault, but we got Amélie, and she’s fine. At least I think she is. She has purple skin now.”

“What?”

“Yeah, we don’t know how or why yet.” He swallowed thickly. “This wasn’t me not trusting you, you know. I just couldn’t _not_ do anything. Everyone was going nuts. Including me.”

A few seconds, and then: “I understand.”

“Do you?” Gabriel groaned and propped his head up on the backrest of his chair. His vision was swimming, and he wasn’t sure whether it was from sleep deprivation or the remnants of his tequila-and-coffee binge. “I think I’m going to fall asleep any second now, despite my possible caffeine poisoning.”

“Knowing you, you probably haven’t even closed your eyes since that stunt you pulled out here,” Jack grunted, sounding equally parts fond and irritated.

“You guys are still in Hong Kong?”

“There’s some … other business to attend to here.” A sniff. “You might, ah, get to see the results on the news. Or something.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Might not be comfortable for you, though.”

“You never went easy on me, Jackie.”

“True. Neither did you on me.”

Gabriel grimaced and rubbed his forehead. Why did they always end up with these passive-aggressive stalemates?

“Look,” he started, but Jack cut him off.

“I have to go. This … I’m doing Sombra a favor, in return for her help with my … you know. So she’s the one calling all the shots.”

“Oh, okay.”

“I guess we’ll hear from each other.”

The line closed with an audible click before Gabriel could say anything in return. It left a feeling sitting in his stomach like grainy sediment – a little bit of fluid anger, and the gravel of regret. In the end, all he could do was swallow it. Swallow, and drag his chair closer to Jesse’s bed so he could rest his head on the stiff mattress in an approximation of sleep that he’d perfected during the Omnic Crisis, and still left him aware of his surroundings. Also, in this state, he never dreamed. He’d take all the small blessings, he supposed, and closed his eyes.

*

Medical cleared Amélie and released her from her quarantine, still baffled as to what caused her strange skin discoloration, but deeming it harmless to both Amélie and her surroundings. She also seemed to have retained blessedly little in regards of psychological trauma, the only fault they could find being nightmares. But as they saw it as a natural side-effect of her time in captivity that was to be expected, it didn’t warrant keeping her contained any longer. In fact, the psychologists that debriefed and vetted her would have been worried had she _not_ shown any signs of psychological stress after such a disruptive event.

Gabriel left Jesse’s bedside only for long enough to watch the Lacroix’ fall into each other’s arms, bruised and battered, but their love still strong between them. He’d given Gérard leave, for as long as he and Amélie needed it. They both deserved some time off, and away from all of this. Especially if there was to be further fallout for Gabriel’s actions.

But in that moment he couldn’t regret doing what was right. He could only count his blessings, even if Jesse didn’t agree with him.

“Would’ve been better if I’d just died.”

“What the hell? How can you say that,” Gabriel growled from his spot across the room. He’d perched on this chair, pretending to do paperwork, when instead he was keeping an eye on Jesse as he was trying to acquaint himself with his new arm.

“This is bullshit,” the young wannabe cowboy spat, swinging said arm in a wide arc that nearly sent the crappy discount flowers his friends brought him careening to the floor. “This … This thing ain’t me. It don’t belong to me. How am I supposed to work with a shit arm? Can’t fight for shit like that.”

Silently, Gabriel cursed. Of course the kid wanted back in again. He’d almost hoped that Jesse might see this as an opportunity to get out. Find a different purpose in life.

“You just need to be patient and work on it,” he said instead. “Do the exercises the therapist showed you, work hard, and you’ll get there.”

“Work hard? It ain’t never gonna be the same,” Jesse spat.

“Well … No, of course not.”

Jesse miserably went back to alternately squeezing the rubber ball the therapist had given him, and throwing it from hand to hand. Maybe some motivation was what the young sharpshooter needed.

“You know I wasn’t always like this either.”

At Gabriel’s words, Jesse stopped with wide and eager eyes, always eager for a story, but also looking a little bit confused.

“What are ya sayin’, boss?”

“I used to be short, if you would believe it. 5’6”, with contracted feet and myopia. Add to that my ADHD and anger management issues, and you’ve got teenage me.”

“Oh my God, _jefe_ , really?” Jesse snorted, ball lying forgotten in his lap. Gabriel supposed he could let that slide for now.

“Yep. Jack …” He cleared his throat. “Jack, too. I mean, he was a total beanstalk, as tall as he … Over 6 foot, this thin,” he held up his little finger, “and had the worst acne you’ve ever seen on a kid. We were fucking terrible.”

“Geez. So it was all … y’know, enhancement stuff?”

“Pretty much. But also a lot of training, exercises … And physical therapy.”

“Oh.” Jesse’s face fell, and he picked up the ball again. “Why?”

“For the growing pains, for one. At least for me. And though we were trained, and pretty good at shooting things? We had to relearn everything from scratch. I mean, try to shoot if your arms are suddenly longer or bigger, and your legs, and your spine. Try reassembling your gun with larger hands. Try running with bigger feet. I mean, we were like a herd of silly baby giraffes, stumbling around, smacking into stuff, making damn fools of ourselves.”

“So how’d you get to be like this, then?”

“Hard work.”

Jesse laughed humorously.

“Yeah, that’s all fine and dandy, but you can’t compare your enhancement thing to this. This ain’t gonna make me better, it’s just gonna make me …”

Gabriel let him struggle for words to describe his condition, until it became clear that he had none.

“Look, kid. I’ve seen many brave soldiers get hurt – get _killed_ – doing their duty. So maybe instead of focusing on what happened to you, and what you lost, why not focus on why you did it? Didn’t we save Amélie from Talon’s clutches? Wasn’t protecting her worth it?”

Judging by Jesse’s cowed look, he got the message. But it was one thing to understand what Gabriel meant, and a completely different matter to really mean it, be convinced by it.

“Just … don’t give up, alright? Things may seem bleak now, but they won’t get better if you don’t put your back into it either.”

There was no answer, but when Gabriel looked up from his paperwork half an hour later, Jesse was still going through his slew of fine motor skill, strength and dexterity exercises. Maybe there was hope for the kid yet.

*

Gabriel was lying in bed in Watchpoint: Syracuse, head propped up on four pillows so he could comfortably sit – though it was more of a lean than a sit – without pulling on the stitches crisscrossing his stomach. He was reading transcripts of the interrogations of Talon agents they’d captured in a frontal assault of an enemy base in the south of Italy. Because he didn’t trust anyone in Blackwatch anymore, he put Mirembe in charge of the interrogations for as long as Angela deemed Gabriel “out of commission”. A wound like this would normally warrant weeks of close observation in the medical wing by a small army of nurses. Thanks to his enhanced healing factor, however, he got discharged right after the stitches went in, and he could probably return to working full force again in a couple of days. It still hurt like crazy, though.

So far, most of the men and women they captured were pretty low-level, and didn’t know too much except for their immediate orders. Some were all too happy to point towards someone else who might know more, but the vast majority of them either got paid too much, was too stubborn, too loyal or too stupid to give up a lot of information.

And because he was doing this under the purview of Overwatch, he couldn’t apply the kind of pressure they utilized in Blackwatch to get to intel.

It had been three weeks since they rescued Amélie, and Gabriel was bearing down hard on anything that even resembled Talon activity. Earlier that day they encountered the first bit of real resistance, though they still managed to secure a large weapons cache despite Gabriel’s injury. It was entirely his own fault – he got distracted, didn’t cover his retreat, and got a full clip of pulse munition to the stomach for it. His head just wasn’t in the game. If he was being honest, he was worried about their progress. This small setback almost reassured him.

He hadn’t heard a single peep from Ólafsdóttir this entire time. Was she trying to lure him into a sense of security, only to tighten the noose at the last second? Was she busy with something else – something terrible and dangerous? Anyway, it couldn’t be a good sign that she wasn’t harassing him over Talon anymore.

Gabriel got torn from his reverie, when a knock drew his attention to his bedroom window, and the shadowy figure blocking most of the light from coming in. When he caught the golden glint of blonde hair over the blocky shape of red-tinted goggles, he sighed and made a vague beckoning motion with one hand.

“Those glasses are ridiculous, do you know that?” he said, as soon as Jack managed to pry open the window and squeeze his bulky form through it.

“Yeah, Sombra tells me often enough.” He straightened himself and groaned. “And you are rude, making me break in here.”

“Uh, I’ve got like fifteen stitches in my stomach. Sorry if I didn’t roll out the fucking red carpet, man.”

“Oh, shit. I didn’t know.”

Gabriel bit his tongue in order to keep more snarky comments from slipping out, and instead watched as Jack painstakingly removed most of his armor – bulletproof vest, faceplate, pauldrons, armored gloves, ammo belt – and piled it up in a messy heap at the foot of Gabriel’s bed. Just like old times.

“What brings you here, then? I thought you and Sombra were working in Hong Kong.”

“Yeah, about that.” Jack grimaced and ran his hands through his hair, which stuck up every which way in protest. “You’re not going to like this, and so … I thought it would be better to discuss this in person, instead of over the phone, or even worse, after the fact. I want to explain myself, and Sombra’s motivations for this.”

“That doesn’t sound ominous at all.”

Jack sighed.

“Can I … sit on the bed? If only so you can kick me more easily after I’m done talking.”

“Sure. I mean, sure you can sit. Whether or not I’ll kick you depends on what you’ve got to say.”

They exchanged wry grins and nervous looks as Jack carefully lowered himself onto the mattress next to Gabriel’s legs. It jostled him a bit, and his wound protested, but the sharp pain wasn’t as bad as the awkwardness between them.

“So. Sombra is a hacker, obviously, as you know, and I think she also told you that her parents died, yes? They actually died during the Omnic Crisis, and she’s been fending for herself ever since. Fled from an orphanage and joined the Los Muertos in Dorado, who got her into the hacking, sponsoring her equipment and the like.” Jack scratched his head. “I’m kinda doing the same thing – I mean, I originally paid her to falsify the records so everyone would think I died in that accident. Now I kind of sponsor her data thefts, if only by letting her use my jet.”

“Your jet?” Gabriel blurted.

“Yeah. I mean, it’s not officially mine. But I commissioned it from AstroTech before I faked my death, and then afterwards I stole it. So technically it’s mine – but it’s also not mine?”

“Okay …”

“Anyway,” Jack sighed, “I initially made contact with Sombra when I caught her snooping around in some low-level Overwatch servers. That was back when her tech was pretty basic. I guess I learned from you and McCree, because when I learned that she was just a kid, I let her explain herself. Turns out she just wanted to find out more about her parents’ death. So I gave her the info she wanted, and thought I’d seen the last of her. Until I started planning my own fake death.”

“What does all this have to do with Hong Kong? And me?”

“Patience, Gabe. I’m getting to that. So I contacted Sombra, commissioned her to falsify the ME report, the agents log, and plant the data on my server. Of course I also explained to her why I wanted to go off grid; old her about Talon – though we didn’t know their name then yet – and the UN’s involvement in major conflicts, money laundry, blackmail, bribery, the whole thing. And she agreed to continue helping me, under one condition.”

“And that would be …?”

“To secure her access to the global Overwatch database. And the main server is located in Hong Kong.”

Gabriel gawped – he literally felt his jaw drop.

“But that- … She could get all agents’ names and locations. All the mission reports, our field roster, our dossiers … Hell, she could look into _Blackwatch_ activity logs. All the wet work; assassinations, torture, interrogation, all of it.”

“I know.”

“But- … But _Jack_. What if she decides to go public with it?”

“That’s the plan.”

“What? But it would destroy Overwatch!” Gabriel cried, watching incredulously as Jack averted his eyes – not in shame, but with an air of conviction that turned the shock in Gabriel’s stomach into sour lead.

“Yes. It would. And I want … I want that to happen, honestly.”

“Why?” Gabriel whispered. “Why would you want to destroy everything that we’ve built? We fought for this, forged it in the fires of the biggest war in human history. You, you raised it to an even higher standard. Medical research, humanitarian aid. Why would you want to burn it all to the ground?”

“Because it has been corrupted! Because no matter how hard we try, whatever we do, the poison has spread too far, and all that is left for us to do is to put it down. End it, quickly and painlessly.” Gabriel saw Jack clench his hands so hard his knuckles turned white. “Overwatch and the people still loyal to its ideals deserve that much. We can’t save it, Gabe. It’s our responsibility to … to put an end to this.”

“Is there any way to convince you not to do this?” Gabriel asked, pleading, but he already knew that once Jack made up his mind there was no swaying him.

“No,” he confirmed Gabriel’s thoughts. “Sombra is preparing the leak as we speak.”

“This is going to have repercussion for you, though. This … So much of it will implicate you, and the media will portray you as … They’ll drag you through the mud for it. They are going to desecrate your memory. Jack, you died a hero, a martyr for the cause. This will ruin your name forever.”

“So what?” Jack growled. “I’ve sacrificed enough for Overwatch. Giving this up in addition to that won’t make much of a difference. Besides, I’m dead, aren’t I?”

“No. No, Jack, you’re not.”

“And- … And what do you care about my reputation anyway?” Jack said bitterly. “Sure, this leak might make your position a bit uncomfortable for a while, but you can just blame me for everything. Tell them I was the one giving the orders. That should be a relief, shouldn’t it?”

It would be – if Gabriel were the kind of person to shift blame, point fingers, and snitch on his friends. But he wasn’t. And honestly, he was a little bit shocked at how little faith Jack seemed to have in him.

So instead of answering such a bullshit question, Gabriel sighed and held out his arm.

“Sombra is going to leak the info, nothing to be done about that. And we’ll deal with the fallout when it happens. But for now, why don’t you stop giving yourself a damn crick in the neck and lie the fuck down. I know you want to.”

Jack gave him a scathing look, but kind of proved Gabriel’s point at the same time, because the angle at which he sat forced him to awkwardly gawk over his shoulder in order to do so.

“Fine,” he said petulantly, and flopped onto the mattress, though he was still conscious of Gabriel’s injury. Jack’s legs ended up hanging over the edge of the bed, and his face was kind of squashed into Gabriel’s shoulder, but they made do. They’d had worse in the past.

“Just like old times,” Jack echoed his thoughts.

“Yeah.”

Jack then proceeded to worm his way under Gabriel’s arm, so it came to rest along the line of his back. His body was a warm, solid presence at his side, familiar in an aching sort of way.

“Last couple of years weren’t like this,” Gabriel admitted.

“No. I- …”

“You what?”

“Nothing.” And then, after a pause: “I miss it though.”

Gabriel let out his rumbling approximation of a purr, and nudged Jack’s head with his chin until he grudgingly uncurled from his position.

“Hey. You miss it, I miss it – why give up something we both want. If Overwatch is really going to implode …”

“I wanted to ask you to join us. Me and Sombra. Or just me, if she leaves after this gig.” Jack averted his eyes. “We could do some good together, you and I.”

Gabriel hummed his assent, though his thoughts drifted in a different direction.

Yes, they could do this vigilante thing together. Save people, punch bad guys, change the world for the better one step at a time. But his own vision went more along the way of a nice house somewhere remote and quiet, just the two of them. Maybe with a view onto the Pacific. A tree, and a bench. Sunsets with Jack sitting quietly next to him.

Such thoughts were dangerous. Stupid, even.

“Gabe?”

He came back to himself at Jack’s quiet voice, and his torn, bleeding expression.

“Jackie?” he echoed.

With growing horror he realized that Jack’s eyes were brimming with tears; tears that got soaked into Gabriel’s comfy shirt when Jack hid his face against his shoulder again.

“I just want you to know that- …”

“What, Jackie? What is it?” he asked, heart in his throat.

“When- … When I decided to leave it all behind, to fake my death and … I want you to know that I thought of you, and what it would mean for you. I didn’t just go on a whim; I made that decision, and planned it for a really long time. I nearly didn’t do it because of you, actually.”

Gabriel brought up his other arm to wrap around Jack’s shoulder, a gesture that made his wound twinge uncomfortably, but it didn’t matter, because Jack relaxed incrementally.

“Whatever happens next,” Jack continued, sounding a bit calmer, “there will be a huge change. But I don’t regret leaving, even if- … What I mean is, I understand if you don’t want anything to do with me in the long run. Because you’re right. For the last couple of years we weren’t exactly good. So if- …”

“I’m going to have to stop you right there, Jackie.” Gabriel shifted again, putting a hand under Jack’s chin to get him to meet his eyes. He had to see how serious Gabriel was; and Gabriel needed to _not_ chicken out again. The faint mixture of hope and despair in Jack’s teary eyes should do the trick.

“What?” Jack muttered.

“Sure, I was hurt when I found out that you basically dumped this whole load of crap on me and abandoned not just me, but all of your friends. But if anything, thinking that … that I lost you. It made me realize how much you mean to me. Hell,” Gabriel charged on, not giving himself a chance to bail out, “you are easily the most important person to me on the entire planet. I might not always agree with you, and we might not be perfect together. But we’ve known each other for nearly twenty years now, Jackie. We were bound to hit some rough spots sooner or later.”

“Wow,” Jack sniffed, and tried his hand at a smile. “That almost sounds like you love me.”

Gabriel knew his face had to have done something weird there, because Jack’ eyes widened almost comically. Only to fill with tears again.

“Oh God … Gabe,” he said, and Gabriel himself was too stunned to keep him from pushing them apart. The rough movement jostled Gabriel’s wound, and Jack let out a weak noise when he let the pain show. “See? Jesus Christ, I always fucking hurt you, I’m not- … I’m not good for you! Why would you even- …?”

“Shh, Jackie, it’s okay. It doesn’t have to mean anything,” Gabriel desperately tried to placate him.

“No, no, it’s not okay! What kind of person am I to do this to you? I made you fucking mourn me; you buried me, for Christ’s sake.”

“You didn’t know, alright? Jack. _It’s okay_.”

“How long, Gabriel? For how long did you- …”

“Well, I only realized after, uh, after you kind of … died.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for, Jackie.”

“Yes there is! I did this to you! All I’ve ever done for you is hurt you – you’d be better off without me.”

Gabriel had to bite his lip to keep himself from saying “please don’t leave me again” – because it wouldn’t be fair, to either of them.

“You don’t owe me anything. But still, for what it’s worth … I forgive you,” he said instead. He didn’t know if that was the right thing to say either, but at least it got Jack to calm down enough that his breath wasn’t coming fast enough to get stuck in his throat. And when Jack reached out again to gently cradle one of Gabriel’s hands in both of his, he couldn’t regret his words either way.

“I’m- … I’ll try to live up to it.”

Gabriel accepted this with a nod, and then tugged at Jack’s hands.

“Alright. Why don’t you come here, and we watch the news together and wait for Sombra to do her thing.”

Jack’s eyes were still watery, but his smile – this was the one, the smile that Gabriel loved so much, because it was _real_ , and it belonged only to him – was bright and brilliant.

“I can do that,” he said, and reclaimed his spot at Gabriel’s side.

It was just like old times. Only better.

*

Four days later, Gabriel stood in his full uniform on a podium in front of what looked like at least two hundred reporters. Sombra had leaked all the information in the Overwatch database, including the revelation of the existence of Blackwatch. The public outcry had been huge, causing many to rescind their support of Overwatch. Even the UN made careful statements hinting at either a disbandment or a reworking of Overwatch as a concept – there was still need for an international peacekeeping initiative, they said, but perhaps it was time for a different approach.

Just as Gabriel feared, however, it wasn’t just Overwatch as a whole that got attacked by politicians, mass media, and the public. Especially names like Jack Morrison and Gabriel Reyes suddenly gained connotations of corruption, despotism, abuse of power, and war crimes.

But now it was Gabriel’s time to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen, I will make this short to clear up any and all confusion about the recent data leak regarding Overwatch, which the media has dubbed the ‘Sombra Leak’. The simple version of it? I cannot and will not deny the existence of a sub-group within Overwatch, nor can I deny the truths revealed by this leak,” he stated.

These were words he had pre-written with care and thought, four days ago, in a bed in Watchpoint: Syracuse. Some parts he had written himself, and insisted on. Others were written in a very familiar, blocky handwriting he would recognize anywhere.

“I cannot deny the existence of a black ops special unit – whether or not it is called Blackwatch – because I, until the death of my friend and predecessor as Strike Commander of Overwatch, was in charge of said unit. As such, I fully take responsibility for any and all actions revealed to the public by the so-called Sombra Leak. No blame is to fall upon my predecessor, Jack Morrison, who stood for the values of international cooperation, peace, freedom, justice, and humanitarianism in life, and should continue to embody this message in death.

”The history of this organization was always shrouded in secrecy, even before its official founding. When me and the five other founders of Overwatch turned the tides of the Omnic Crisis, paving the way for peaceful coexistence with the Omnics, we were full of ideas and hope. Even in the face of insurmountable odds we persisted, thanks to our bond with each other; our trust in each other’s abilities and skill; our unshakeable belief that we were doing the right thing. I dare say we saved many lives, and since then, the world has seen an era of prosperity, cooperation and progress the likes of which only ever stem from great suffering.

“Today I stand before you, representative of thousands of men and women, non-humans and Omnics, as the public holds us accountable. As we should be. Overwatch is beholden to the same principles of democracy and justice as any other governmental or non-governmental body of similar influence and power. It is knowing our responsibilities that have led to my standing here, and saying: if the public truly wants to condemn Overwatch for its methods – as is its right – I would also like to remind every single one of you of the good that I believe Overwatch has done in this world.

“We may not be perfect. Maybe we were flawed from the start. All the heads and hands and hearts that Overwatch consists of, we are flawed. How can the child of our labors not be?

“Whatever the UN decides, regarding the future of Overwatch as a global peacekeeping initiative, we will continue our work in the meantime, as it was intended. We will continue to save lives, neutralize threats, and face the dangers of our world. And yes, such work is not, and will never be, clean.

“Thank you for your attention.”

Later he watched the official broadcast of his speech in the communal area of the HQ, with a pale looking Jesse curled up on the sofa, Liao stretched out on the floor, Ana perched in Reinhardt’s lap, Torbjörn at their feet … All the agents Gabriel came to see as his family were gathered to watch his speech. They even had buckets full of popcorn, and cheap soda. Even some healthy snacks, courtesy of Doctor Ziegler.

“Hear, hear!” Liao cheered after it was over, and Gabriel had to watch himself stride off the stage with his ridiculously blue duster flaring dramatically behind him.

“Good speech, boss,” Jesse added, and playfully threw his hat up in the air with his new arm.

“Very well said, indeed, Commander.”

In his pocket, his phone buzzed.

_didn’t i say you looked good in blue? :)_

He chuckled, and grabbed another handful of popcorn.

“Don’t get all sappy on me just yet, until we either get shut down or reassigned, or whatever, we’ve still got jobs to do,” he said to the others. “Which reminds me … I should check in on the Lacroix’. Or did someone else already?”

“No, sir. It was my turn, but I wanted to see your speech first,” said Bayless.

“Then you just stay here with the team. I’ll visit them and see how things are.”

Gabriel headed to the garage straight away, logging off on one of the small, nondescript cars that Overwatch had available for its agents’ use for both official and private matters. All in all, the drive to the Lacroix’ apartment building wouldn’t take more than five minutes if traffic wasn’t too bad, and he could easily have made Bayless do this checkup. But he wanted to use the bit of privacy to hook up his phone to the car and dial a certain number.

“Hey.”

“I nearly shat my pants when I went on that stage,” Gabriel chuckled without preamble. “So … Thanks for the assist on writing that damn speech, I guess. If I’d been blindsided by this whole leak, I don’t know if I could have come up with something that quick.”

“You know I got your back, Gabe,” Jack replied, his rumbling voice filling the car’s interior like he was sitting on the back seat.

“Appreciate it. What did Sombra say? Is she satisfied with the leak?”

“Mm, more or less. But I guess she’s going freelance now. I mean, we’ll probably work together again in the future, but for now she wants to go solo again.”

“Will she be alright?”

“Yeah. I bought her some new tech, and set up a safe house for her to retreat if she has to. Plus, she’s a darned smart cookie.”

Gabriel laughed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Looked like traffic was already pretty bad, but he didn’t mind. It gave him a few more minutes to talk to Jack.

“What are you going to do next, then? Any way I can help you?”

“I heard there’s a trafficking ring somewhere in South Africa, shipping people from southeastern Asia to the African continent. Might go and cause some trouble there.”

“Lay off Talon for a while.”

“Exactly. With both you and me harassing them, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was going to be a nasty blowback soon. If we leave ‘em alone for a bit- …”

“… then we’ll have the moment of surprise back on our side.”

“You read my mind.”

“Always did, always will,” Gabriel said, trying not to sound too fond and wistful.

“Mm. What about you guys? Are you going to put a stop to missions?”

“No. As long as the UN doesn’t pull the plug, we’re still the same Overwatch. Though I’ve already put most of Blackwatch on ice, because of Gérard being out of commission. I’m actually on my way to check up on him and Amélie right now.”

“Are you _driving_?” Jack cried, sounding so scandalized that Gabriel burst out into laughter.

“Calm your horses, Jackie,  you’re on speaker. I’m driving very safely, I’ll have you know.”

“Still, it decreases your reaction time and concentration by nearly- …”

“That never stopped you before,” he cut him off, still laughing. “Remember that time in Tamanrasset when you were driving that humvee, screaming into the walkie, and trying to have a satellite phone call with Colonel Mitchell at the same time?”

“That was the damn desert, not central Zürich!”

“Same difference, Jackie.”

“I’m ending the call. Eyes on the road, Reyes.”

“Yessir,” Gabriel snorted.

Ten minutes later, when he arrived at the apartment building where the Lacroix’ lived, he was still in high spirits. Not even the overcast sky and the beginning drizzle could put a dent in that. But when he stood in front of the building’s entrance, about to ring for the third time, even his temporary optimism started to wane a little bit. He tried calling Gérard next, but neither he nor Amélie were answering their phones _or_ the door. Well, he only rung out of politeness, as he had a key. Still, it made him reconsider not bringing more than his standard-issue sidearm. What if Talon tampered with the scene again?

He let himself into the house, and rode the elevator to the top floor. The Lacroix’ owned the penthouse, with an incredible view of the Appenzell Alps and Lake Zürich. However, they didn’t answer this door either.

“Gérard? Amélie?” he called out and knocked a few times. Perhaps the intercom wasn’t working. But no, they didn’t answer.

Grudgingly, he unlocked the apartment door and stepped inside. Maybe they just weren’t home, even though they hadn’t left the apartment ever since Amélie returned. Gabriel had their personal security system as well as the entire house’s improved until it nearly surpassed those of the Overwatch evidence lockers, to make them feel safe again. As far as he could tell, they barricaded themselves in and recovered from the shock of the attack and their separation in private. So they should be here.

“Gérard? It’s Gabriel. I’m just checking in to see if you guys need anything,” he called out again. “Amélie? Are you home?”

There was no answer, and his heart sank. This wasn’t right.

He readied both his sidearm and set his phone to speed dial Liao with a preset emergency message at a mere swipe, like a signal flare. Then he started to methodically sweep the apartment, from the entrance to the living room, dining room, kitchen, both bathrooms, and the- …

“Gérard!”

It was only thanks to his rigorous training that he didn’t drop his weapon to hurry to the figure lying prone on the floor right next to the bed. First, he checked all the corners, the closet and the bed, to make sure they were alone. Then he let himself fall to his knees to roll Gérard onto his back, automatically searching for a pulse with the same motion. He didn’t have to. The blue color of his lips, the burst vessels in his eyes, the purpling around his neck …

“Fuck,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face.

What about Amélie? Was this the work of Talon? An attempt to get her back in their clutches?

He sent the signal flare to Liao, and then made to step back. This was a crime scene, after all, and disturbing it any more than he already did would only make it harder to find out who did this. But as he stepped away, his boot connected with something that slid across the carpeted floor in a bright flash.

It was a purple note. A card. With a strange, spider-like symbol stamped onto its cover.

Carefully, he picked it up and unfolded it.

 _Adieu, mon chéri_ , was all it said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come talk to me on tumblr at llaevateinn.tumblr.com or leave a comment! You guys have been amazing so far, and your responses are greatly responsible for the fact that I'm writing this quickly tbh. Sadly, I didn't manage to finish this before uni starts again (next week), but we'll see about that last chapter and the sequel.
> 
>  **Headcanons 'n stuff: ******  
> 1\. Y'all thought I forgot about McCree's robo arm? Ahahahahahaha. Haha. Ha.  
>  2\. Tiny, angry kid!Gabe gives me life. Also feat. beanstalk!Jack. But those are totally silly headcanons that I don't even really believe, I mean, why would they take complete losers in terms of military ideals and stick them into this super important program, right? (Is Gabe even telling the truth? Who knows).  
> 3\. If there weren't a possible sequel, the fic might have ended at somewhere right after Gabe's speech, after the Sombra Leak. Just FYI.  
> 4\. I'm sorry about the Lacroix' :( One day I will write an OW fic where their story isn't so tragic. It's just more angsty this way, ya kno?  
> 


	6. I walk the plank, not a tear in my eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, this is it! The end of "Long Live the Strike Commander" is finally here :D I was made aware there needs to be a definitely emphathic WARNING! Please, if you want to avoid something, consult the end notes.
> 
> PS: Chapter title from "Devil Devil" by MILCK

Usually, the silence in the belly of a transport right after a long mission was caused by sheer exhaustion. Gabriel had seen more than his share of mute agents either half unconscious, half-way to sleep, or staring blankly into the distance. Whether that was in the US military, the SEP, early Overwatch or Blackwatch, the adrenaline drop after a mission – successful or not – always looked the same. It could be measured in yawns per minute, or the frequency of feet tapping on the floor. It could be measured in mouths hanging open, heads nodding, and strained knuckles fighting to keep a tremble at bay.

But this time Gabriel wasn’t feeling the tingle of his enhancements unsubtly trying to repair the damage done to his body. No one was yawning or tapping their feet. No one was sleeping.

Because less than half of their team had made it.

Tracer was the only one up and about, having set the autopilot to bring them to New York HQ, and blinked this way and that, handing out water bottles and shock blankets to the rescued scientists.

Gabriel couldn’t help but stare at them, seated in chairs meant for others. Like afterimages burnt into his retina, he saw Bayless leaning over the map table in the middle, face illuminated by the holographs. Al-Farouk playing some card game in the corner by himself. Singh nodding his head to the rhythm of whatever music was playing on his headphones.

Ana, small but sturdy next to him. Steady. Confident. Strong. Beautiful.

He looked at the seat where she should be sitting, and was met with empty, hanging seatbelts. A stray hair – gray, everyone’s hair was going gray – lay lonely, curled up on the seat cushion. With a hand that looked steadier than it felt he picked it up.

A lifetime ago he met a woman, nearly a head smaller than him, nearly half his width, but with a burning power in her eyes that he instantly recognized. There was mutual respect between them that soon stretched into heartfelt friendship. His trust in her, well-earned and doubly reciprocated, held steady all these years. She always had his back. And he- …

“ _Everyone, move! Ana, you too!_ ”

_“No!”_

_“Disengage, Ana! That’s an order!”_

But by the time he’d finished his sentence, he already heard the telltale click of Ana’s comms being turned off. Why did she not listen? No, it wasn’t her fault. It was no one’s fault, except for whoever killed her.

He let the hair run through his fingers, and it curled lazily when he pinched it with a short nail. God, what was he supposed to tell Fareeha? They didn’t even have a body to bring back, they couldn’t bring back a single one of their fallen agents. These hollow spaces where they used to be, that they filled with their vibrant lives and presences, left to be void and empty forever.

His fingers itched to fish out his phone and dial Jack’s number. He needed to hear his rough, steady voice to tell him that it was alright, that he’d done all he could- …

Gabriel buried his face in his hands. But he hadn’t, had he? He should have protected his people. There had to have been a way to bring the scientists to safety without sacrificing half of his team. Experienced agents. Valuable members of Overwatch. Men and women he implicitly trusted, despite all the corruption and poison spreading through the organization. The number of people he felt safe to be in a room with suddenly dwindled to a mere handful. Was this what happened? Was this Ólafsdóttir’s doing? Talon was her lapdog, and it was Talon that held the scientists hostage, Talon that ambushed them.

“Commander?”

“Yes?” he said without lifting his head. He didn’t need to see the unwavering smile and sun-blinding optimism on Lena’s face right now.

“Can I get you something? Some water maybe, or a blanket, or- …”

“A phone.”

They both fell silent for a few moments. He cleared his throat and straightened himself.

“I should call ahead and see to the safe handoff of- …”

“Commander,” Lena cut in, her voice light but firm. “I already made sure that there is a team on standby in New York to take care of our scientists. And called Zürich and told them about our losses.”

“Ah.”

“Sorry if I was being too forward, but you were busy finalizing our mission. Sir.”

Gabriel blinked, and stared at Lena’s face. There was no smile, no quirky twist to her lips. Her eyes were for once not covered by her streamline glasses, and very clear.

“I should’ve been there,” she suddenly blurted out. “I know I was only supposed to pilot, and it was sensible of you to assign me as pilot only, we needed a quick getaway. And I wouldn’t have been any help in the stealth part of the mission, but … Maybe if I had helped with the retreat, if I hadn’t just hid in the ship and, and waited like a coward- …”

“Tracer,” he cut in, and waited until she snapped her mouth shut. “This isn’t your fault.”

“But Ana, and … Gosh, what’s going to happen to Fareeha?”

“That’s not your responsibility, Lena. This mission was under my purview, and it was my duty to not only succeed, but also bring us all back home safe. If it’s anyone’s fault it would be mine.”

“Gosh, no, that’s not what I meant at all,” she was quick to say, fidgeting on her feet. The chronal accelerator on her chest swelled as she fought for words. “I didn’t mean to say you did wrong. I’m just- … I’ve never- …”

Gabriel’s face fell.

“You never lost before, have you. Not like this. Not when we succeeded in our mission, but lost anyways.”

“No, sir. I mean, yes …”

“It’s alright,” he said, forcing an encouraging smile onto his lips. “It will be alright, trust me. We’ll get through this, and turn out stronger for it.”

“But … We lost Ana, and Al-Farouk, and Singh- …”

“After a while,” Gabriel continued, “after years of fighting, there comes a point where you don’t fight for the nameless, faceless people you are saving somewhere. You still do it for them, and they motivate you. But when there is a bullet hurtling towards you, you don’t survive for them. You do it for your fallen comrades, so that their sacrifice won’t have been in vain.

“We are Overwatch, Tracer. You are Overwatch. I am Overwatch. Ana was Overwatch. When we live we are Overwatch. When we fight we are Overwatch. When we die, we are still Overwatch, because Overwatch continues to live on in our comrades that survived.”

Chastised, Lena, had lowered her burning gaze and started to fiddle with the edge of her chronal accelerator. When Gabriel finished his impromptu speech, however, there was a glint in her eyes. She straightened her back and met his gaze, almost smiling.

“Thank you, Commander,” she muttered, and zipped away. He watched her join Mirembe, who prepared some hot beverage, and the two women set out to distribute what little they had to the shell-shocked scientists they saved. Even shaken like this, Gabriel’s agents embodied everything good and pure that still remained in Overwatch. And then there was Gabriel himself.

He let his head hang, staring at his limp hands dangling between his knees. How bloody were his hands really? How many had he killed with his own two hands, with weapons wielded by him? How many had he killed by leading them to their deaths like sheep to the slaughterhouse? How many had he condemned now, simply by being?

In moments like this it was hard to see why he was doing this. Had been doing this for more than half his life. Killing to save lives? What kind of fucked up logic was that?

His fingers itched again, and his heart ached. Squinting his eyes shut, he swallowed the urge to call Jack, consequences be damned. He couldn’t be selfish now.

But didn’t Jack also deserve to know that Ana- …?

Before he realized it, his phone was in his hands, and he was typing a message.

_i fucked up_

It didn’t even take a minute for a reply to pop up.

_gabe what happened_

He stared at the letters, reading them, but not being able to comprehend the concepts behind them. What happened? Everything. The worst. In the end he settled for just coming out with it, as he could nearly feel Jack’s anxiety through miles of distance and a shitty wireless connection.

_ana is dead_

This time, Jack took his sweet time. Gabriel closed his eyes and tried to picture him, somewhere, probably huddled in a corner, in the dark. Was he crying? Was he angry? At Gabriel?

_what happened_

Angry, then. Feeling almost detached from himself, Gabriel typed: _talon ambushed us. Ana, bayless, al-farouk, and singh. All dead_

 _shit,_ came the almost immediate answer. And then: a _re you okay though_

 _not a single fucking scratch_ , Gabriel wrote. After some hesitation, he added: _it’s my fault_

His display lit up, announcing a call from an unknown number. He swiped to deny. The screen lit up again. Frowning, he denied it. The screen lit up again.

 _i can’t right now i’m not alone_ , he typed, but the number popped up repeatedly in quick succession. Too quick for him to send the message.

“What the fuck are you doing, I’m- …”

“No, shut the hell up, Gabe,” Jack interrupted his whispered plea. His voice sounded gruff. From screaming angrily beforehand? “Just listen, okay? No one has to know you’re talking to me. Just … shut up and let me talk. Actually, hook me up to your comm. Do you know how to do that?”

“Of course I do, I’m not a moron,” he growled under his breath and performed the necessary steps to reroute his phone call to his earpiece. “Done.”

“Good. Now listen, alright? I’m probably the only damn person on the planet that understands the shit position you’re in right now, and to be fair, I would probably blame myself too if I was in your shoes. But you know what, Gabe? It’s not. It’s not your fucking fault that the UN decided to back a terrorist organization. It’s not your fault Ólafsdóttir is blackmailing you and effectively silencing you and denying you all agency. It’s not your fault that your mission went belly-up, because I won’t believe for a second that you didn’t have plans A to Z shoved up everyone’s asses for the most unlikely scenarios. You’re always prepared, and it makes you think that when things go wrong it must have been your fault. But it’s not.”

Listening to Jack use his rare, but all the more effective ‘stern voice’, Gabriel swallowed the lump that had been forming in his throat. Yes, Jack sounded angry. His voice only ever got this rough when he was all but growling, probably halfway to a blood frenzied alpha focus, and really, really worried. And all of this on _behalf_ _of_ Gabriel.

He’d been afraid Jack would blame him, he really was. He thought he disappointed him, as both Strike Commander following in Jack’s footsteps, and as Ana’s friend, Fareeha’s honorary uncle, and fellow soldier. Instead, Jack understood.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there with you,” Jack continued, and Gabriel had to press a fist to his mouth to keep himself from making a sound. “I’m sorry that this happened – but just know that I do not blame you. I never would. I don’t know exactly what happened, but- … Sorry, I don’t want to- …” A frustrated little huff. “This is weird. You can’t answer me, and I’m just blabbering. You know how I hate that. So, how about you call me back once you’re free, huh?”

Gabriel typed: _okay_ , and hid a smile when he heard Jack’s answering snort.

“Alright. I’ll hear from you soon.”

His smile soon fell after he heard the click of the line closing. While hearing that Jack didn’t blame him for Ana’s death, it was barely more than hollow solace. It didn’t change the fact that he was going to have to face Fareeha and tell her that her mother died. It didn’t change anything about the reality that there was almost no one left for Gabriel to trust – barely anyone left unpunished for Gabriel’s insolence. So many dead, crippled or otherwise injured because he just couldn’t let it be.

On a whim he pulled out his phone again and dialed one of the few numbers saved on it. When Isabel’s sleepy voice answered, his heart skipped a beat.

“Hey,” he forced out, throat closing up on him.

“Oh! Gabriel, it’s so good to hear from you,” she replied, sounding much more awake all of a sudden. He heard her shout something away from the receiver, and a chorus of voices answered her. “You’re lucky, I’ve got mamá and papá over for lunch – they’ll be thrilled you called.”

“Yeah …”

A beat of silence between them.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

Gabriel huffed out a laugh. Isabel had always been far too perceptive for her own good. Especially with regards to her little brother’s moods.

“It’s- … Nothing to worry about. Just a mission that went wrong.”

“Okay. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah. I just wanted to hear from you. How are things on your end? Is Ángel giving you any trouble?”

“Oh no, he truly is an angel. So sweet, sleeps like a log, always happy … He’s in that phase right now where he’s blabbering gibberish non-stop. The only words he really knows are mama and dada, but that doesn’t keep him from trying to hold entire conversations,” Isabel laughed.

“That sounds wonderful. I wish … Well, I wish I could visit more often, but you know how it is.”

“Gabriel, always busy.”

“Yeah.”

“Hey, why don’t I give the phone to mamá, she’d probably love to- …”

“No, no, I don’t have much time. You guys enjoy your little get-together, yeah? Be safe, Isabel. Give everyone my love for me.”

“If you’re sure … You be safe too, _hermano_.”

So at least his family was spared from Ólafsdóttir’s horrible influence so far. They were happy with their simple, civilian lives, far away from the danger, death and destruction that surrounded Gabriel. Then again, he had chosen this, and it would be unfair to claim anything else about Ana, Singh, Al-Farouk or Bayless. They, too, had been soldiers. Accomplished fighters that knew what they turned their backs on, what they signed up for instead. Death was just one of these things.

Gabriel got up from his seat, swallowed his morose mood, and straightened himself. Sometimes being a soldier, an agent of Overwatch, meant playing a role. And assigned to him was the role of the hero, the savior, the messenger of peace and justice. Heroes didn’t have time to grieve their fallen comrades, but moved on and shone all the brighter to make up for their losses. He could see that light reflected in Lena’s eyes as he joined her in taking care of the scientists they saved. He saw the awe in their faces as he knelt before them in his blue uniform, and thanked them for their bravery.

Out of the corner of his eyes he thought he saw Ana nod approvingly, but of course that was just his imagination.

*

With Blackwatch crippled by Gérard’s death and Gabriel’s firm fist clamping down on all active operations, Overwatch’s resources were stretched thin enough as it were. But with the loss of four senior agents, Gabriel was hard pressed to keep up with the demands placed on their shoulders. They were still investigating Gérard’s murder and Amélie’s disappearance, on top of which the hunt for Talon was their first priority. Aside from this, there was the day-to-day business that needed handling: crushing a smuggling cartel in Indonesia, supporting reconstruction in Siberia after an insurgent rebellion, maintaining the safety and quarantine of the God programs … It wasn’t easy, especially with Gabriel putting a stop to recruiting. But he didn’t want to simply flood their ranks with fresh blood to replace their losses – opening their gates would surely attract talents and vermin alike.

After Ana and the other agents that died were buried – in Ana’s case with nothing but some personal effects in her casket, as no body was found – Gabriel ran himself and the few people he trusted unconditionally haggard. Meanwhile, the UN and the press hounded him for answers, results, anything in reply to their massive losses. He could give them nothing but placating words, mere band-aids for a gaping wound.

Some days he wondered why he was still fighting. This was what Sombra and Jack wanted, wasn’t it? The death of Overwatch?

But Talon killed Gérard and Ana, took Jesse’s arm, did _something_ to Amélie … And Gabriel couldn’t leave this unanswered. In a frenzy, he and a team consisting of Tracer, Mirembe and Kimiko, with Liao providing backup, swept across the globe. As they destroyed nearly two dozen Talon bases in less than a month, Gabriel left the Zürich HQ in the capable hands of Reinhardt, Winston, Torbjörn and Angela. But all their win streak did was highlight that Talon’s influence reached even further than they ever dared to imagine. With Overwatch on its deathbed, this was a fight between David and Goliath, especially considering the wavering support of the public and the UN, while Ólafsdóttir continued to feed Talon.

Whispers on the net, and clues pieced together from intel told Gabriel that Jack was doing his part to chip at the giant’s armor by tearing down its allies. Weapons suppliers, recruitment centers, supply lines, shell corporations, he took them all on by himself, and emerged victorious.

Sometimes, at night, when everyone was asleep, Gabriel called him and reveled in the soft burr of Jack’s voice. These days it was one of the few things that made him smile.

But after nearly a month on the hunt, it was time to return to base.

Walking the halls of the Zürich HQ was surreal. The trip back from the landing pad to his room was lined with unfamiliar faces that turned with his movement, leaving him to wonder whether they stared at him in hostility, or if he had something on his face.

The first thing he did upon reaching his chambers was to strip and take a long, boiling hot shower to remove the grime, dirt, blood and gore of a month of slaughter. Behind the darkness of his closed eyelids he counted the deaths inflicted by his hands, echoes of the noise of his shotguns in his ears. Afterwards, he finally started to feel human again. Food was the next thing on his mental checklist, but as his fridge was not stocked – or the things remaining inside no longer fit to eat – he saw no other choice but to grace the cafeteria. There, he was once more subject to stares, leers and scowls, so he decided to be an asshole and bring his plate of food to his room. As he ate, he automatically dialed a familiar number.

“I take it your op went well,” Jack greeted him without preamble.

“Yeah,” he said around a bite of chicken curry. “It was just a small base though. No intel, just some low-level goons for me to shoot.”

“So you’re back at HQ now?”

“Mhm. And I can’t say that the food is any better than when I left.”

“You haven’t been gone that long, Gabe. I doubt much has changed.”

“Well, everyone’s staring at me like I’m a ghost. I guess to them a month is quite long without my handsome appearance gracing these parts,” he joked lightly, licking some sauce off his fork. He heard Jack chuckle, and grinned. “Can’t imagine what it must be like for you. Having withdrawal symptoms yet?”

“What’s made you so chipper all of a sudden?”

“Hey, can’t a man be happy to have a real bed again for once?”

Jack groaned.

“Don’t remind me. I’ve been sleeping on yoga mats and cardboard for the last couple of days. I’d kill a man for a pillow, probably.”

Gabriel was about to make a quip, when there was a loud knock on his door.

“Hang on a sec, someone’s here,” he muttered into the phone and put it down.

Adjusting the beanie on his head he’d worn out of a sense of nostalgia – because beanies did not go with the official Strike Commander outfit, but had been a fixture of his style back in Blackwatch – he got up to answer the door. He was met with the sight of a sheepish Jesse, wearing his old boots with suprs, hat and serape; the whole cowboy getup.

“Wow,” Gabriel said. “Haven’t seen those on you in years.”

“Hiya to you too, _jefe_. Can I come in?”

“Yeah, sure. Take a seat,” he said, indicating the couch in his small living room area. “Do you want a beer or something? I think I’ve still got some.”

“Nah, ‘s alright. I just wanted to tell you somethin’ real quick.”

“Okay?”

Jesse fiddled with the frayed edge of his old serape for a few moments, catching Gabriel’s eye. It seemed like his fine motor skills had improved much in the month he’d been away, because there was no awkwardness in the movement of his metal hand.

“Just spit it out, kid.”

“Alright. Boss- … Reyes. Gabriel. I’m asking you to accept my resignation.”

Stunned, Gabriel sat blinking for a few seconds.

“What?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ … And this ain’t none of your fault, boss. I’m mighty grateful for everything you’ve done for me. Took me in when you didn’t have to, gave me a home and a family. A purpose. But with what’s happened recently, I’m- … I dunno. I guess it started with Genji leaving. Got me started on wonderin’, you know? If this is really what I wanna do for the rest of my life. If this is all I’m ever gonna be.”

“Jesse,” Gabriel interrupted, “I understand.”

The younger man – the boy he’d seen grow up from a weedy punk to a strong, admirable man – looked up at him from under the brim of his hat, eyes wide and round.

“You do?”

“Yeah. I got it when Genji wanted to leave, and I get it now.” Gabriel sighed and rubbed is beard with one hand. “I’ll be sad to watch you go, but damn if it doesn’t also make me proud. You’ve come a long way, Jesse. Just promise me you’ll make the best of this.”

“I will, boss,” he said, smirking.

They both stood, freezing for an awkward moment. Jesse made as if to salute, but Gabriel slapped his hand away.

“None of that bullshit, come here, kid,” he growled, and pulled him into a hug.

He got a good whiff of cigar smoke, the smell clinging to Jesse’s skin and hair like a layer of grime. Underneath that, gunpowder, metal and oil. Gabriel tightened his hold and gave a playful growl that Jesse mirrored, laughing, with a quick pattern tapped onto his back with his organic fingers. This was as close as the both of them got to admitting they were family to each other – but then, they both knew that it went unsaid.

“Thanks for everything,” Jesse called out just before the door slipped shut.

Gabriel imagined he’d remember that image forever. The damn cowboy with a cocky quirk to his mouth and a happy glint in his eyes as he turned his back on him.

Was he upset that Jesse just up and left? A little bit, sure. He loved the kid, and he was proud of him. He wanted to protect him. And that was just the thing. Jesse was better off far away from Gabriel and Overwatch, at least until the dust settled. He knew that. And somewhere there was a little bit of pride, that he taught Jesse well enough to recognize the signs and jump ship while it was still possible. But it still stung, of course.

As he picked up his phone again, Gabriel wondered if this is what it felt like to let a child go.

“So,” he said, “Jesse just left.”

“Okay.”

“No. I mean … He really left. I just accepted his resignation.”

“Oh.” Gabriel practically heard the gears in Jack’s head turn. “Oh! But where will he go? Did he say what his plans were? Oh, Gabe. Are you alright?”

“You don’t have to sound like that,” he scoffed. “I’m fine, this is- … I don’t know what he’s going to do now, but it’s for the best, I suppose. Overwatch is dying, after all.”

“I’m just asking because I know you two were close.”

“Jack …”

“ _Gabe_.”

He huffed and let himself fall onto the couch where just minutes before Jesse sat.

“I’m fine. Really. We don’t know how ugly the fallout is going to be when Overwatch collapses. It’s better he’s as far away as can be.”

“If you say so.”

“Stop it with that tone, Jack.”

“What, I’m just saying. I’m a bit skeptical you’re okay with him just leaving. I mean, he was your protégé and all that. It’s got to mean something,” he grumbled.

Gabriel gripped his phone a bit harder.

“Jackie, are you jealous?”

“What? No! What- … I just- … What I mean is you care about him, and- …”

“You’re _jealous_. Oh my god.”

There was a loud clatter on the other end, and Gabriel heard a distant, muffled curse from Jack.

“Uh, no comment?” came his belated response.

“Hey,” Gabriel said, fist pressed to his forehead and grinning like a fool. “Hey, Jackie. No need to be embarrassed. If I remember correctly I’m the one who slipped up first.”

“Shut up, Gabe.” A huff. “I gotta go anyway. My target is on the move.”

“Convenient.”

“ _Bye_.”

Gabriel laughed and let himself fall onto his bed, phone still pressed to his ear even after heard Jack hang up. The rush of bubbly giddiness that filled up his chest effectively chased away any remnants of sorrow left over from his earlier interaction with Jesse. Because, holy shit, Jack just all but admitted that he liked Gabriel too. That he liked him _that_ way, and not just as a friend slash fuckbuddy slash brother-in-arms.

For just a second, Gabriel couldn’t wait for all this to be over. He wanted Overwatch’s death throes to still into the rigor mortis of acceptance. He wanted it to stop, so he could pack his things and go to wherever Jack was right now, even if it was a hellhole with no real bed. He wanted them to be together again, like they used to be way back when. Because as much as things got strained before Jack’s fake death, Gabriel felt like the extraordinary situation they found themselves in right now had forced them both to overlook some petty grievances. Nothing like a bit of blackmail, grief and vigilantism to bring back the spark in a relationship.

As he lay there, the exhaustion from the last couple of weeks finally caught up with him. Soon enough he found himself curling up under the blankets, still grinning like a total sap. Thankfully, no one saw him, or his badass image would be ruined forever.

*

Gabriel awoke with a start, disoriented, senses scanning for whatever so rudely interrupted his sleep. The loud, booming sound and vibrations that sent his entire room trembling like in an earthquake simulator made him jump out of his bed like burnt, and he was out in the corridor almost as fast as Tracer.

“Alarm!” he screamed, voice being drowned out by the actual alarm. The primary sound was a horn, faintly underlying that the ringing of a fire detector. He even thought he could hear the civil defense sirens of the city droning in the background.

Lightly jogging, Gabriel made his way towards the nearest exit, and was soon joined by hordes of Overwatch personnel. They were all calm, knowing the drill, even as the ground shook again.

“Explosions,” came a voice from left and below.

“The labs?” Gabriel asked Torbjörn, not slowing down. The engineer casually matched his pace.

“No, not one of us.”

“An attack?”

“Very probably.” The Swede grimaced and scowled. “But if the sirens are on, that means we are not necessarily the primary target, but the whole city is being attacked. Maybe the whole country.”

“War?” Gabriel said, incredulously. But before Torbjörn could reply, the alarm suddenly fell silent. Gabriel frantically looked around, and saw that some people came to a halt, confused.

And then the lights went out.

“What the hell is going on,” Gabriel shouted, trying to make himself heard over the din of people chattering. Someone screamed. He got jostled and thrown into a wall. An elbow dug into his kidneys.

“Emergency protocols. Taking over facility network.”

“Athena,” Gabriel breathed, relieved to her the AI’s dulcet tones coming from the speakers. “Athena, can you get the lights back on? We need to get everyone outside.”

“Accessing backup power. Please remain calm, and follow the emergency signaling. Leave the building in an orderly fashion.”

“Athena, can you hear me?”

“Please proceed to the nearest exit, and follow the instructions of the authorities.”

Gabriel cursed. It looked like the AI couldn’t hear him, but at least some of the emergency functionalities of the base were restored. Light flickered on in the corridors that led towards the exit, and people calmed down enough to form a steady stream of bodies that tried to sweep Gabriel along. He flattened himself against the wall, calling out reassuringly when a new explosion rattled the floors. This one was much closer, though, throwing a scientist off his feet so he nearly got trampled. Gabriel shouldered past some other people to get to him and get him moving again.

“Thank you, Commander,” the scientist said, gripping his hand like a vice. “But I saw some people trapped behind the blast doors downstairs – behind the armory. Some of the agents and recruits, I think.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Gabriel promised.

He used his size and bulk to force his way against the stream of people still hurrying past him and towards safety. Feeling the adrenaline in his system jumpstart his enhancements, he felt his focus narrowing in on all the faces rushing past, trying to find one that looked familiar. Some he knew from admin, or from the cafeteria, or the engineering block. There was a cluster of nurses from medical, but no Angela. No one was safe, in his mind, not even Torbjörn, who he lost track of. Did the engineer make it out after the power went out? What about Winston and Liao, who he thought were in the easternmost wing, on the opposite side of the compound?

The way to the armory was so ingrained in his mind that his feet carried him there swiftly and surely, the trickle of people fleeing thinning until he was alone with the deafening silence of a dead base. The further he got, the more he encountered signs of destruction. Soot stains, rubble, a collapsed ceiling that he had to circumvent. Just as he rounded the corner, nearly smacking into the blast doors that protected the rest of HQ from the potentially lethal explosive power stored in there, another quake shook the ground, this one more distant. Distant enough, perhaps to have originated from outside the compound. Was really the entire city under attack?

There was no time to speculate, however, as he crowded against the security panel, typing in his override code with shaking fingers. Whoever was trapped in there was sure to be someone he knew, someone he swore to protect.

The panel lit up red, and he cursed loudly. He typed in the override again. It beeped, and he heard the rumble of machinery unlocking within the walls. Agonizingly slowly, the blast doors opened. As soon as the gap was large enough to admit him, Gabriel squeezed through and into the darkness of the armory.

“Let’s get out, everyone, we need to- …!”

“Freeze!”

Gabriel growled and grit his teeth, gently tilting his head away from the muzzle pressing against his temple. Of course it was a damn trap.

A flickering light went on and showed him a semi-circle of black-clad men and women with a familiar symbol displayed on their uniforms. They were all aiming their various types of weapons at him. Weapons probably stolen right out of this very same armory.

“Your cooperation would be much appreciated, Commander,” a new voice came from behind him. “Talon has great plans for you.”

This voice, more than the two dozen guns aimed at him, made him stop and freeze. He knew this voice. He knew the accent, the intonation – the woman behind it.

“Amélie,” he gasped.

“Amélie Lacroix is dead. I am Widowmaker,” she said impassively and stepped in front of him. Her skin was an even more intense shade of purple than it was when they saved her – or did they really? – from Talon’s clutches, and her yellow, feline predator eyes were trained on Gabriel like icy beams. Nothing on her face indicated that she knew him. There was no smugness, no anger, no triumph. Nothing at all. Pure, cold blankness.

“What the hell did they do to you?”

“You will understand very soon. Take him.”

The last bit was directed at the Talon cronies, who swept in to restrain him. But Gabriel Reyes was not ready to give up just yet. With a deft, often-practiced move he disarmed the guy holding his rifle to Gabriel’s head and sent him flying. The next two shared his fate, as they got to sample Gabriel’s superb kicking skills.

His enhancements already coursed through his veins, sending electricity through his limbs, and his focus was already sharpened – this fight started and ended before these poor Talon minions even realized it. Bones broke under his pressure, ribcages collapsed under his hands, and every attack got deflected with the ease of a mountain withstanding the eroding forces of a storm. None of them could touch him. He was their doom.

Snarling, he knocked a head into the wall so hard there was a cracking sound. His focus immediately snapped to the next target, and he let out a challenging roar. The palms of his hands were wet with blood, and he could taste metal on his tongue, body and mind raging in unison until only one was left standing.

“I suppose you shall make a good addition to Talon,” said Amélie, raising her left hand.

Gabriel barely registered the first sting, or the second, or third. Ears ringing, he charged, intent on crushing this last enemy under his power and dominance. But despite the sharpness of his senses, she managed to dodge his initial attack. Sidestepping elegantly, she made him look like a bumbling fool, as he lunged, swiped and punched at empty air. More stings. The energy charged up inside him suddenly depleted, leaving him to crash into a wall instead of catching himself.

“What- …?” he gasped, as his legs dissolved into jelly beneath him.

“Finally,” Amélie scoffed, the first expression from her that wasn’t completely neutral, and shook her head. “This is starting to get boring, and we do not have much time.”

She turned her back on him, speaking softly into a comm device on her wrist. The sight of her making herself vulnerable, _taunting_ him with it, rekindled some of the fight left in Gabriel, but all he could do was crawl forward a bit before he collapsed onto the floor.

“… immediate extraction … critical … structural integrity not …”

As he lay there, cheek pressed to the cool concrete, the greedy clutches of his alpha focus released him, letting him think other things aside from ‘fight’, ‘kill’, or ‘attack’. He was in the Zürich HQ. There were explosions. They needed to get out of here, right now.

Amélie must have administered a pretty strong paralyzing agent. He couldn’t even move his eyes; couldn’t protest, when she wound a device looking like a grapple and rope around his wrists as makeshift handcuffs. When she unceremoniously decided to drag him along behind her like this, he couldn’t voice his displeasure. But at least his mental faculties were restored.

Judging by the things he was able to spot, Amélie was bringing him to the hangar right next to the armory. Made sense, at least if it was still intact. Otherwise, bad idea.

Another explosion rattled the walls around them, making Gabriel wonder if anything else but rubble would be left after this. Probably not.

Amélie tugged him along effortlessly – what did Talon do to her to make her like this? She acted nothing like the Amélie he knew from before. And apparently she got really, really strong as well. What else did they give her, superpowers? Was this what they had in store for Gabriel? Damn, Amélie was a civilian woman, and he already was a supersoldier. If they were able to change her that much, what would Gabriel be capable of once they were done with him?

They finally seemed to reach one of the transports, and Amélie dumped him in the back without a second glance. He heard her move around in the cockpit. He felt the transport lift off, catapulting them off into the night. Morning. Whatever.

“They told me to show you this.”

A cold hand gripped him by the neck and lifted him up, smashing his face against the small window on the side of their aircraft.

Beneath them, all he could see was hell. Flames, and plumes of smoke. As he pieced together the fact that what he was seeing were the remains of Overwatch’s Zürich HQ, a pillar of fire rose from the center, engulfing more than half the leftover structures in a blazing inferno. They were already too high up to see any details, and it was still too dark anyways, but Gabriel frantically searched the premises to get a glimpse of any survivors. _Someone_ had to have made it out, like them.

Many more must have perished in the explosions, however. There was no convincing himself otherwise. Not in the face of this destruction.

“Have you seen your fill?”

Amélie then let him go, letting him slump on the floor of the transport as she returned to the cockpit and expertly piloted them away.

Talon wasn’t going to get away with this. There was no way of blaming this on anyone but Talon. It even might have helped Overwatch recover from its recent low – if the public saw that there were still threats out there no one but Overwatch could deal with, they might regain their support. And perhaps, if Talon did this without approval, it could cause Ólafsdóttir and the other backers in the UN to rescind their sponsorship. Something good might yet come of this, Gabriel told himself.

After what felt like roughly two hours, the transport tipped, leaving Gabriel’s still paralyzed body to crash against the walls like a rag doll – and what kind of poison had such a long duration of effect on his enhanced system anyways? If Talon knew how to counter his metabolism, augmented strength and speed, the advantages his SEP training gave him were as good as null and void. The plan to fight his way out of this situation seemed less and less likely to succeed.

Someone tugged hard on his feet, sending him sliding out of the transport and onto the floor of what looked like a pretty standard military base. Or maybe it was just a warehouse. Hard to tell without being able to look around.

“ _Welcome to Talon, subject AZ-5. I am Dr. Cuevas, and I will be your primary caretaker for the duration of your stay here_ ,” said a pleasant, baritone male voice. Dr. Cuevas, Gabriel noted, was speaking Spanish with an European accent. Did that mean Amélie brought him from Switzerland to Spain? Or was that meant to disorient him? Or did they think it would put him at ease to hear Spanish? If he could, he’d tell them where they could shove it.

Strong hands lifted him onto a stretcher, and he was rolled off. All he could see was the ceiling flying by, as nondescript as ceilings went. He tried to move his toes, but couldn’t tell if anything happened at all. Before he could continue his experimentation, he spotted the kind of swinging doors you always saw in emergency rooms. Just as he came to the conclusion that Dr. Cuevas was having him brought into an operating room, he was lifted off the stretcher and laid out on a cold, metal examination table. That was when he started to panic a little bit.

Recalling his torture resistance training, he forced his heartbeat and breathing to slow down. Closing his eyes wasn’t an option, so he stared at the ceiling instead, focusing his senses on the slowly warming metal underneath him, the warped shadows of people moving around him, and the weight of his own body. It didn’t matter what was being said, they weren’t talking to him anyways; it didn’t matter that someone was cutting his clothing off his limbs, leaving him stark naked on the operating table; it didn’t matter what was going to happen. He just had to remain relaxed.

The first cut nearly knocked the breath out of him, leaving a wide, deep slash across his abdomen. He focused on his pulse, keeping it calm and steady, and thanked whatever concoction Amélie administered for the fact that it kept him from making any noise. The cut burned, and he focused on this sensation, instead on the feeling of a hand seemingly trying to reach inside of him.

Soon enough, everything started to dull around the edges. Blood loss, his mind helpfully analyzed. Shock. There were no anesthetics, no medication aside from the poison denying Gabriel access to his motor functions. Even his enhancements were quiet, not kick starting with the familiar tickle and burn. The drug must have blocked them.

Were they trying to kill him? He wondered distantly about the motives of cutting him open like a coroner would a corpse. This wasn’t how he wanted to go out. He’d rather die with his boots on, screaming and kicking, fighting like the soldier he fashioned himself to be. Not picked apart by a doctor like roadkill by a vulture.

More cuts joined the first, all along his limbs and crisscrossing his torso. By the time they turned him around to lie on the table face down, he was only just conscious. The incisions they made on his back barely registered.

He was dying, there was no doubt. Gabriel lay there, helpless, trapped inside his own mind as he tried to cling to reality. He thought about all the people that were in his care, who would need his support in moving on from the wreckage that was Overwatch. He thought about the people he loved and cared about, where they might me, and if anyone was even going to find out what happened to Gabriel. If anyone would care. Then he thought about Jack.

As his eyes finally drifted shut, he made a wish.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNINGS for dark ending, implied character death, medical procedures/paralysis/torture, and open ending
> 
> don't hate me for the cliffhanger ending omg
> 
> I'm very glad for every kudos and comment and bookmark on this fic! As of this update, we have more than 200 kudos, and nearly 100 comments (though almost half of those are mine I know), that's an awesome ratio *gross sobbing* You guys have been and are and will always be awesome <3 I never expected this kind of reaction for an ABO, Grief/Mourning fic that turned into so much more. Thanks to all of you for making these months of writing "Long Live the Strike Commander" a wonderful time!
> 
>  **Headcanons 'n stuff:**  
>  1\. The first scene happens right after the events of the canon "Legacy" comic. If you haven't read it, go do that!  
> 2\. Speaking of the comic, I kinda fucked up everyone's ages in my mind (though I absolutely blame Michael Chu for that and the early promotional pics where everyone is so fucken young), and though LLTSC accelerated the timeline, Ana should definitely have at least some grey hair, which means that Fareeha should be in her late teens. Idk. In the beginning of the fic I wrote her as an early teen, maybe 12 or so, but she should be almost 18. Mea culpa. Creative license?  
> 3\. So many phone calls D: But I wanted to at least have Gabe's family in there again somewhere, before the end. Also, that last phone call just makes it more angsty lol  
> 4\. Everyone we know and love was in that Zürich HQ. What happened to them? *cue To Be Continued music*  
> 5\. There was another scene at the end there but I decided to bring it over into the sequel. Its WIP title is "An Eye for an Eye", so if you're interested keep an eye out for that, or subscribe to the series "We're Gonna Be Legends"! :D


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